101 Ways to Date Sam Winchester
by 94 Bottles Of Snapple
Summary: Or: 99 Zany Sabriel AUs. In which Gabriel makes frivolous (according to his brothers) use of his all-powerful Archangel mojo to try and psych himself up to ask Sam Winchester on a date. All he needs is a little practice, after all. And, as usual with Gabriel, things spiral a bit out of control.
1. First Attempt

**A/N: I can't get Supernatural off the brain lately. So, I figured I'd better start writing so I can get at least some of it out of my system by November (so I can write an original story for NaNoWriMo, of course). I'm planning on having 101 chapters total (as referenced by the title) but I only have a quarter of the AUs decided on. Requests are welcome!**

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**Chapter 1: A First Attempt**

Gabriel mussed his hair. The lighting in the Men of Letters bunker's library was a little dim, and maybe could have been romantic if not for the miles and miles of books on how to kill supernatural creatures that lined the walls. Well, if you didn't know what they were about, maybe it could still be romantic. Sam liked books, right?

That wasn't the point though, and Gabriel knew he was stalling.

"So, look," the archangel propositioned shakily. "What I'm trying to say is I think we should go on a date. Get some coffee. See the Louvre. Snag some chocolate in Switzerland. You know. Start out casual."

Casual. That was funny, right? Casual. And maybe it was a bit of a security blanket to bring up his powers, like that showed what a catch he was, but why not? After all he would have no qualms about zipping Sam anywhere in the world, as long as they were together. There was a heavy silence. Gabriel laughed nervously just to break it, and Sam stared at him.

"A date?" the hunter asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "The Louvre?"

"Y-yeah, well, come on, gigantor!"

Sam massaged the bridge of his nose and sighed. Gabriel's heart sank.

"Gabriel, I… I don't even know where to start with this," Sam said. "First of all, do you honestly think I have enough down time to go skipping off to Europe with you? Some of us actually try to, you know, help people."

The archangel shrunk into himself a little, only daring to meet Sam's eyes in quick darting glances. What he saw there was not reassuring.

"W-well, but I-"

"Secondly, why would I even believe that this is an honest offer at all? When have you ever shown any kind of romantic interest in me?"

"There was the time I-"

"And another thing. Yes, you've helped Dean and me out a few times, but that's it. We were never friends, let alone the potential for something more. I don't know why you bothered saying all this in the first place, honestly."

Gabriel's jaw tensed, and he blinked hard a few times but not to fight back tears or anything because he was a Trickster and an archangel and he didn't give a shit what one little hunter thought of him. Only that was the whole problem; yes he did. Swallowing hard, Gabriel snapped his fingers before Sam could say anything more painful.

The scene around him, Sam included, dissolved.

"One more time," the archangel promised, trying to psyche himself up. "One more time, and I'll get it right."

Gabriel snapped again, and the act started over from the beginning.

"Gabriel?" Sam asked, furrowing his brows. "You're… You're dead."

The angel plastered on a smile and shrugged.

"Can't get rid of the Trickster so easily, Sammy!" he exclaimed. "Here. I'll prove it's me."

With a snap of his fingers, a platter of chocolate-covered strawberries appeared. Gabriel took one off the plate and popped it into his mouth before offering the tray to Sam. Frowning, the hunter waved him away. With a practiced sigh, one perfected by twenty previous attempts, Gabriel set the strawberries on a nearby table.

"Alright, you're you," Sam relented. "What do you want? You've been dead, or at least pretending to be, for like five years now."

"Just busy, archangel stuff. But that's not important. Thing is, I realized something and I…"

Gabriel struggled for a moment. His script had run out, and he needed to find something to replace the previous disastrously received dialogue with.

"You?" Sam prompted impatiently.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry," Gabriel said. "About… Well, lots of things. I'm sorry about Mystery Spot, even though it was hilarious-"

Sam's unimpressed look cut Gabriel off, and the archangel mussed his hair.

"Well, nevermind about Mystery Spot," Gabriel stammered. "I'm sorry I didn't help more, with you and your brother, the whole Apocalypse thing. I'm sorry I haven't come back to help you since then. I'm… Pretty useless, huh?"

"Basically," Sam replied.

Gabriel flinched and snapped his fingers to make Sam disappear.

"This is harder than I thought…" he muttered to himself, pressing the heel of his palm over his heart. "I can't take much more of this."

"Gabriel. What are you doing?"

The youngest archangel whirled around, putting on a shit-eating grin just for his eldest brother.

"Mikey! What are you doing here, bro?"

But Michael just looked at him steadily, and did not respond. Gabriel shifted from foot to foot. He glanced around a little, noticing with some mortification that though he had snapped away the illusionary Sam, they were still standing in the Winchesters' bunker. Gabriel chanced a look at Michael's eyes. They were steely and unwavering.

"Nothing important…" Gabriel said at last.

"You have been simulating conversations with Sam Winchester for the past hour. Why?" Michael demanded.

"You wouldn't get it," Gabriel huffed, petulance rearing to the forefront in an attempt to annoy his brother off the scene.

"You want to start a romantic relationship with him. What is there to not get, aside from why?"

The look on Michael's face was one of no little disdain. Gabriel's smile twitched and faded.

"What do you mean why?" he snapped. "Sam is- he's- he's pretty and smart, not to mention he completely pulled one over on you and Luci, by the way, and he gets this look in his eyes that's just- and the way he says "so get this" when he's found something for a case and-"

Gabriel trailed off when he realized he was rambling. Michael looked even more unimpressed, if that was even possible. Gabriel stuck out his tongue at his big brother.

"This is a waste of your time and energy, Gabriel," said Michael. "You should be helping to restructure Heaven."

"No!"

Even Gabriel was surprised by the sharpness in his tone. Michael took a step back. Squeezing his eyes closed, Gabriel took a shaky breath. He held up both hands, a gesture common between the brothers before their estrangement; Gabriel's signal for 'give me a moment'. With an uncomfortable frown on his face, Michael waited.

"No," Gabriel repeated. "Not until I get this right. I have to- I have to get this right. Please, Michael."

The look in his eyes was uncomplicated; simple, strong desire. For his own well-being, Michael realized, Gabriel had to finish this. Whatever this was, and no matter how frivolous it seemed to him.

"Alright. Fine," Michael relented.

He was gone with a soft fluttering sound, and Gabriel let out a long breath.

"Thanks bro. … Once more, with feeling. Come on Gabe."

With a click of his short fingers, the scene began again. The Men of Letters Bunker, take twenty-five. But he was so worked up he had forgotten how he was supposed to start.

"Look, Sam, I know I messed up-"

"Gabriel?! Dude, what the hell?" Sam demanded, practically falling out of his chair.

Gabriel flitted to his side, to make sure he was steadied, but Sam pulled away sharply.

"Sam, _please_."

"Please what?" the hunter asked. "You're _dead_, why are you here?"

"No, I'm not dead. I was hiding out in Heaven. Look, Sam, that isn't… It's not important, I'm here because-"

"Because what?" demanded Sam. "Whenever you show up, it always means trouble."

"What? Come on, kiddo, I'm not that bad, am I?" Gabriel asked with a weak smile.

Sam set his jaw harshly, and Gabriel snapped his fingers.

"Ok," he relented to empty air. "I am that bad. But I can do this. I know I can! I'm the Trickster! If I can get those two yahoos at each other's throats in a day, I can get one of them to fall for my charms!"

The archangel went to snap his fingers again, but after a moment's pause lowered his hand and frowned. Mulling over an idea, he shifted his weight from foot to foot. His golden eyes zipped back and forth as he debated, and then with a contemplative frown and a shrug, Gabriel snapped his fingers again.

The dim, silent Men of Letters bunker vanished. Instead, the white noise of a huge crowd buzzed in Gabriel's ears, and everything was bright and colorful. A perfect blue sky sailed overhead, and the smell of ice cream and turkey legs wafted through the air like a college boy's cologne.

"Maybe we just need a change of scene, huh Sammy?" Gabriel asked rhetorically, a grin on his face.

And what better place to start his journey to suave, Sam-seducing confidence than the Happiest Place on Earth?


	2. Disney World AU

**A/N: I'm hoping to keep publishing these at a fairly quick pace, but if you follow any of my other stories you know my muse can be quite fickle. No, I don't own Supernatural or any of its characters.**

**Also oh my god I'm sorry this is listed as humor, I swear it will get funnier soon as the AUs get weirder, just bear with the sadness for now.**

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**Chapter 2: A-Hunting We Will Go**

"Hiya, boys! Did you miss me?" Gabriel asked, slinging his arms around the Winchesters, who looked utterly out of place in Disney World.

Admittedly, Dean was the only one who got an arm around his shoulder. Since Sam was so ridiculously tall, like a skyscraper, or Gabriel's true form, Gabriel had _no choice_ but to put an arm around the younger Winchester's waist. Honest.

"Gabriel," Sam sighed.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Dean squawked at the same moment, pulling out of the archangel's grasp with a lack of trust that was admittedly warranted.

Gabriel smiled pleasantly.

"I heard you knuckleheads had a case down here, and how could I pass up a monster hunt in Disney World?" he asked, feeling a little rush of pride that Sam hadn't tried to worm out of his grip yet. "I mean, come on, I live for stuff like this!"

"You know we're here on a case, right?" Sam asked, looking a little exasperated.

Then again, that seemed to be his standard expression.

"Yeah, sure! But how hard could it be with an archangel on your shoulder, right?"

With a snap of his fingers, Gabriel was holding an ice cream cone. He finally released Sam's waist, and saw the hunter relax a little. Well, that wasn't exactly… Reassuring… But it seemed he had a lot better chances with things when he didn't have to stumble over that 'whoops sorry I faked my death' thing. So that was good.

"So, what do you think we're dealing with?" Dean asked his brother.

"I dunno, man. Ghost? Maybe?"

Gabriel cleared his throat to remind them he was still there and, hey, still important.

"Why don't you fill me in?" he asked. "I did come here to help, you know."

Dean scoffed, looking more irritated than any person whose job had brought them to Disney World ought to look. Gabriel thought about dropping a piano on him, but remembered how sore Sam still was over Mystery Spot just in time. He was still pondering what he could potentially get away with when the elder Winchester paused in a moment of realization.

"Seems to me we might actually have a suspect right in front of us," Dean growled, fisting a hand in Gabriel's shirt and dragging him into threatening distance.

"Oh, please," Gabriel waved off with a sarcastic smirk, not bothering to wait for Sam to defend him because like _that_ would ever happen. "If I was behind this, you'd be neck deep in cotton candy by now, _McGruff_. I told you, I'm here to help."

"Let's just go, alright?" Sam said, which seemed to settle the fight.

Dean let go of Gabriel, and was therefore saved from being smited in a poetic manner. And though he himself had concocted the scenario, Gabriel traipsed along after the Winchesters to, shock and awe, the Haunted Mansion. It was a little cliché, a little silly, but Gabriel was all about that anyway.

"So do we have to burn all 999 of these suckers, or…?" Dean joked, throwing Sam a childish smirk.

"Let's hope not," Sam retorted, ever the straight-man to Dean's comedy.

"Sooo…" Gabriel prompted, waving his hands in little 'get on with it' circles.

"Two night patrol workers and a maintenance guy went missing in the Haunted Mansion over the last few weeks," explained Sam quietly. "Yesterday we talked to the park manager, but all she knew was that up until a month ago everything was normal. But there haven't been any new animatrons or anything added, or any evidence that there should be a ghost haunting the place. And the other maintenance worker that night said he heard screaming and ran. They finally found the bodies, all left in just the right position that anyone actually on the ride wouldn't be able to see them. Their hearts aren't missing, so no on werewolves. And no fang marks either, so vampires are out. I'm guessing it's some sort of ghost or spirit. A poltergeist maybe. The ride's been shut down for now, but with a body count like that, this has to be our sort of job."

Gabriel nodded, hiding his smile at the use of 'our' behind his ice cream cone, even if it wasn't meant for him.

"Ok, so, what's the plan? Sneak in there tonight, guns blazing?" the angel asked, making a spy pose with a finger gun at the ready.

"Or now," Dean argued. "The ride's closed, there won't be anybody hanging around it anyway. We need to gank this thing ASAP."

Gabriel motioned with his head, where security guards stood outside the roped-off queue gates.

"Think they'll let you in, then?" he asked.

"Not alone," said Sam. "And we can't risk bringing any of them with us if we're going up against whatever's in there. Especially since we're not sure what it could be."

Dean seemed displeased by the facts, but looked like he would grudgingly go along with his brother. Gabriel let a smile slide over his face, and he hooked his arm through Sam's before the hunter could protest.

"Well, since we won't be getting in there until the park closes, we might as well enjoy ourselves now, right?" he asked.

The brothers looked at him. Sam opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again, and turned to Dean to express their shared discontent. Dean, apparently, had no problem explaining.

"We're three grown single men walking around Disney World, Gabriel. It's weird."

Sam nodded, his expression practically screaming 'what he said', and pulled his arm away from Gabriel's. The archangel felt his heart squeeze a little, but covered it with childish annoyance.

"Ughhh," Gabriel groaned. "Only you two sad sacks could make the Magic Kingdom un-fun."

Honestly. How like the Winchesters to spoil a perfectly good, sunny day in Disney World, just for the sake of what people might think. True, their little trio did stand out a bit, but so what? They weren't bothering anyone. Three, though, that could be remedied.

"Fine," Gabriel relented at last, though neither of the Winchesters appeared to know what about. "Call in Castiel and we can have a double date."

Dean spluttered through several attempts at explanations as to how platonic and brotherly he and Cas were while Gabriel watched, unimpressed. Sam looked back and forth between the two as if he was trying to decide whose side to be on. Before he could come to a decision, Gabriel had snapped his fingers.

Castiel looked around, bewildered.

"… Dean?"

"Hey, Cas…"

Gabriel smiled. Sam sighed, as expected.

"Come on, Cassie, we're at Disney World, the Happiest Place on Earth!" Gabriel exclaimed, wrapping an arm around his little brother. "Show some enthusiasm!"

Surprisingly, it wasn't actually that hard to coax Castiel and the Winchesters into enjoying themselves. Really all it took to get Dean on his side was a giant turkey leg, and Castiel was curious enough about everything to do most of the dragging for Gabriel in the first place. Sam was a tougher nut to crack, but after whirling around in a bright pink teacup like idiots for a few minutes, even he let loose.

It was beautiful to see, actually.

The way his eyes lit up was dazzling, which actually came as a bit of a shock to Gabriel. After all, his benchmark for dazzling was Lucifer's wings. As the two of them followed behind Dean and Castiel, Sam nudged Gabriel's shoulder.

"Hm?"

"Cas is taking Dean towards It's A Small World," Sam whispered.

He was right. The trench-coated little nerd was making a beeline straight for the musical ride, which was admittedly only still in existence because Balthazar had never had the misfortune of riding it. Gabriel glanced up at Sam.

"So, should we follow and watch them as blackmail, or let Deano suffer alone?" he asked.

Sam's mouth pursed into a goofy-looking thinking frown as he debated their options.

"Screw Dean," the brunette exclaimed at last. "I'm not going in there!"

Sam darted off towards Tomorrowland with Gabriel chasing after him. They finally caught their breath when Sam hopped into the Space Mountain line, which was stretched out the doors. He had a giddy smile on his face, and was gulping air like he'd run from a wendigo.

"I haven't… Had this much fun in ages," he admitted.

"Me neither," agreed Gabriel. "… Hey. What say we pop to the front of this line?"

Sam managed a disapproving look for all of ten seconds before excitement overtook him and he grinned again. Gabriel took that as his cue, and snapped his fingers. Suddenly at the front of the line, the two of them barely had time to prepare before being strapped into the roller coaster. As they hit the drops and swerves of the ride, Gabriel was surprised to find Sam whooping and hollering right along with him.

"I feel like a kid again," said Sam as they walked into the open air again. "You know, for being such a douche angel most of the time, you're not so bad, Gabriel."

The archangel took the backhanded compliment in stride, and gave a low bow.

"That's what I'm here for Sambo."

Night fell pretty quickly after that, and their group of four met up and hid out until everyone had left the park. They ducked under the rope barrier to the Haunted Mansion, and Gabriel disabled the security cameras with a click of his fingers. After that it was pretty smooth sailing getting inside. The Winchesters were, after all, well-versed in the art of breaking and entering.

They were also well-versed in the art of getting the crap beaten out of them, which was pretty much what happened next. The thing was definitely a spirit of some sort. It rushed through the group, tossing both hunters and angels in random directions. Gabriel's head cracked against one of the ride walls, and his gaze went dangerous. He recovered quickly and flitted to Sam's side.

"You alright?" he asked.

"Fine."

Sam hauled himself to his feet, and pulled out a canister of salt. Halfway through encircling the two of them, he was slammed against the track of the ride. With an eerie click, it creaked to life and a cart rumbled towards him. There was a blast. Dean had fired rock salt at the area next to the cart, but it didn't seem to have hit anything. Jaw tense, Gabriel snapped. The ride ground to a halt.

Then it started up again.

Sam struggled against whatever invisible hold had him pinned, but it didn't seem like much use.

"Dean!" he shouted. "The purification ritual! It's gotta be a poltergeist!"

Dean fired another round of rock salt into empty air, unable to locate the spirit, then tossed his duffle to Castiel.

"Cas! There's four containers in there, put 'em at each of the four corners of the building!" he instructed, before jumping down onto the track in front of his brother.

As if to spite him, the cart sped up. With a quick flit, Gabriel tugged both brothers off the tracks and the cart barreled right by. An angry screech rent the air, and then everything was silent. Castiel returned.

"I did as you asked, Dean," he informed them.

Dean slapped the angel on the back with a breathless laugh.

"Thanks, man. Now we've gotta find whatever this thing's attached to and burn it, just in case."

So the group set out once again, trekking through the ride and making sure to stay off the tracks. Nothing appeared out of place, though.

"What about this?" Castiel asked, holding up a tarnished penny.

Dean and Sam looked at each other before shrugging.

"I doubt it, but… It could be," said Sam.

They all looked over at Gabriel, who had been silent for an abnormally long amount of time. Feeling eyes on him, the archangel held up his hands.

"Hold on. Think I got something."

He flitted away, to a place near the end of the ride. After searching around a few fake headstones, he came across a single, genuine bone. An index finger, it looked like. Ew. All the same, he picked it up, and it reeked of spiritual energy. Yup. It was definitely their target.

And then a prayer zapped through him like lightning.

Sam.

Gabriel was back with the Winchesters and Castiel in an instant. Dean was unconscious, sprawled in the tracks with blood leaking into his sandy hair. Sam's left arm looked broken, and his right was being used to toss salt hopelessly in all directions. Castiel was struggling to pull Dean out of harm's way without dislocating his arms.

"I've got it!" Gabriel announced, both to distract the poltergeist and inform his teammates.

There was a rush of telekinetic force, and the archangel found himself trapped against the wall next to Sam. The hunter grabbed the bone and managed to pour salt all over it before he too was slammed hard against the wall. With a crack Sam was out like a light.

A surge of white-hot, rage-fueled grace went through Gabriel, and he grabbed the bone, incinerating it on contact. The poltergeist, which had apparently been hovering just above Dean, burst into flame. Everything went silent, but Gabriel's heart was still pounding like a drum in his chest.

With a snap of Gabriel's fingers, Dean was back in perfect shape, which Castiel proceeded to verify by practically dousing the poor guy in grace. That settled, the archangel leaned down to place a hand on Sam's forehead. The blood and sweat sticking to his palm made Gabriel take an angry breath in through his nose and let it out sharply. If the poltergeist wasn't already dead twice over, Gabriel would have killed it again.

"Gabriel…?"

"I've gotcha, Sam."

With a rush of blue-white grace, Sam's wounds closed and his bone stitched back together. The hunter sat up with a grunt.

"… Thanks," he muttered.

"No problem, gigantor."

Victorious but tired, all four men stumbled out of the Haunted Mansion. Dean stretched and let out a whoop, raising his fist in the air.

"Another supernatural son of a bitch ganked, and still plenty of time to hit the bar for a beer!" he shouted.

"Dean," said Sam, looking amused. "It's three in the morning."

"Ok, fine, no beer," the elder Winchester said sourly.

He stomped off towards the park's entrance, and Castiel and Sam hustled after him. Just as the angel caught up to Dean, Gabriel's courage came together.

"Sam?"

The dark-haired hunter turned around. Gabriel glanced past Sam at Dean and Castiel. They seemed pretty occupied with their conversation… Yeah. He could afford to take a few minutes. Turning back to Sam, he held out a hand.

"… Let me show you something."

Gabriel's heart glowed even brighter than his wings when Sam actually took the offered hand. With a soft flapping noise, they stood on the balcony of Cinderella's Castle. Sam let out a breathless laugh, placing his palms on the railing and leaning out to feel the night breeze on his face.

"Gabriel, this is—"

Sam paused mid-turn back to Gabriel, brown hair fluttering around his cold cheeks and eyes wide. The archangel smiled weakly. It had all gone so well, too. But they had finally come to the part where Sam would shut him down again. Still, it was in the archangel way to try. Well, ok, maybe not the archangel way. But while Gabriel had been called a coward his fair share of times, he saw things through when he needed to.

"Sam?" he said quietly.

"Uh… Yeah? Gabriel?"

The baffled, sort of hesitant look on Sam's face was absolutely precious. It made Gabriel think of the very first star his big brother had hung in the sky. Suddenly he felt very old and very, very young all at the same time.

And then he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"Nothing. Just thought you'd be used to the view, with how freakishly tall you are."

Sam's laugh was worth giving up again, and leaving the confession unsaid. With a shake of his shaggy head, the hunter turned back to look over the expanse of the park. The wistful sigh that left Sam's lips was more than Gabriel found he could bear. The archangel mussed a hand through his own locks and shook his head. He savored one last look at Sam's back as he leaned on the railing, chin on his hands.

Then Gabriel clicked his fingers.


	3. Valentines Day AU

**A/N: Still don't own Supernatural. If I did, they'd bring back Benny and Adam, and Gabriel would be a series regular.**

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**Chapter 3: Something About Red Balloons**

Gabriel strolled through the Men of Letters bunker with his hands behind his back. Coming back to the setting made something hard and cold curl in his stomach, but Gabriel pushed past it with a smile on his face. This was different. He still didn't have to stumble through an explanation of why he wasn't dead, for one thing.

And for another, he had the extra push of the date: February 14th, to be exact.

He found Sam sitting in the library, as usual, looking at his laptop with an open bottle of beer at his elbow.

"Miss me?"

Sam jumped, turning to face Gabriel.

"… Gabriel? What…?"

The archangel strolled over and pulled a box of chocolates from behind his back. He presented them with all the flourish of a waiter at a swanky high-end restaurant.

"Thought you might be lonely, what with Deano trolling the bars for a V-Day hookup and all," he explained cheerfully.

Sam rolled his eyes, taking a swig from his beer and ignoring the chocolates Gabriel had offered. With a slight frown, the archangel set the box on the table. But, he wouldn't let Sam's grumpy attitude get to him. After all, he was there to turn that frown upside down. With a little sigh, Gabriel plopped down onto the wooden table, facing Sam.

"What do you want, Gabriel?" the hunter asked at last, turning back to the screen of his laptop and shielding his face from view with a curtain of soft brown hair.

"I told you, Sammy, I'm here to keep you company! Come on, don't grumble, I know you love me!" said Gabriel.

"Uh huh, sure."

Gabriel's expression wavered, because on the one hand Sam had looked at him again, but on the other his expression was one of flat annoyance. After a few seconds of contemplation, the archangel smiled back sunnily and snapped his fingers. With a little whoosh, there were pink and red streamers gliding across the ceiling, flanked by bunches of shiny red balloons.

"Come on, Sam! Live a little!"

"This," Sam asked skeptically, gesturing at the cheesy decorations, "is your idea of living a little?"

"Pssh, no," Gabriel scoffed, waving his hand. "That usually involves strippers and dessert bars. But we have to take this in baby steps, since you're so used to being drab and fun-less."

Sam quirked an eyebrow, staring Gabriel down with what Dean had coined his 'bitchface'. Gabriel personally had never seen any dog, female or otherwise, pull off such startlingly high levels of sass, but perhaps Dean knew best. … As if!

Hopping off the table, Gabriel snatched Sam's hands. It was only thanks to his monstrous archangel strength that he was able to pull the stupidly tall hunter out of his chair at all, but that was beside the point.

"I'm not drab and fun-less, whatever that means," Sam protested as he was dragged along.

But before he could say anything else, Gabriel had snapped again. The library furniture vanished, to be replaced with a dance floor. Sam pursed his lips and said nothing.

"Sorry I got rid of the books," said Gabriel. "But I thought maybe you could do with switching things up. They'll be back when we're done."

"Done what?"

Gabriel shook his head, grinning.

"Celebrating Valentine's Day, of course!"

Sam looked down at his left hand, still held in Gabriel's right. There was just the barest twitch to inform the archangel that the hand now in his was dangerously tense. Gabriel closed his eyes and took a deep breath, but did not let go.

"And if I say no?" Sam asked him. "What then, you'll force me?"

The words itched in Gabriel's chest cavity. He released Sam's hand, brow furrowed.

"No, of course not," he answered, mussing a hand through his hair. "I would never-…"

"Really?"

The words 'not to you, not now' settled on the roof of Gabriel's mouth like peanut butter. He rolled his shoulders, shrugged. Sam waited patiently with his arms crossed over his chest. Gabriel fiddled with his fingers. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. Instead, he clicked his fingers.

The bunker returned to normal. Sam's eyes narrowed.

"What's the catch?"

"No catch, gigantor," Gabriel assured.

"There has to be a catch," protested Sam. "Or a lesson, or something. There always is with you."

Gabriel's smile turned wry. He'd trained the two stooges well, it seemed. Maybe too well. But they had needed his lessons, at the time, hadn't they? Lacing his hands behind his head, Gabriel took a few paces to the side and studied the newly-returned bookshelves.

"Anyone ever tell you you think too much, Sammy?"

"Yeah, but not you."

That startled a laugh out of the archangel, and he almost reached up to cover his mouth. Then his shoulder went warm as Sam's large hand fell on it. Before Gabriel could say anything else, he'd been turned to face Sam – or Sam's chest, at least. He looked up to meet Sam's eyes.

"Seriously, Gabriel. What the hell?"

Golden eyes dodging to the side, Gabriel snapped himself up a heart-shaped lollipop and stuck it in his mouth to avoid speaking. Sam's jaw tensed.

"I didn't lie, before," said Gabriel at last, pulling the lollipop from his mouth and twirling it. "Just thought you could use a little variety. You're so one-minded, Sambo."

Something underneath his skin was raring to just snap the dance floor back and make Sam enjoy himself, whether the ridiculous moose wanted to or not. That was the trickster talking, though, and what he'd probably have to reign in to get Sam's approval. If he could get Sam's approval.

The downward spiral of his internal monologue only made Gabriel smile all the brighter to cover it. Sam let an angry breath out through his nose. He opened his mouth to speak again. Gabriel wasn't sure just why, but he popped the heart-shaped sucker into Sam's mouth before the hunter had a chance to speak. He made the most adorable startled noise, blinking twice before coming back to his senses.

"Indirect kiss," Gabriel teased.

Sam squinted harshly, but did not remove the candy from his mouth. Instead, he used his long arms to haul Gabriel over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"Hey!" the archangel protested, squirming feebly in his grip. "What gives? Sam? Sammy? Gigantor?"

With no explanation, Gabriel was dumped on the map table in the bunker's foyer. Then Sam pulled the sucker from his mouth and pointed it at Gabriel accusingly.

"You," he said, "are the most ridiculous, senseless supernatural weirdo I have ever had the misfortune to cross paths with."

"Oh, stop, you'll make me blush."

Contrary to that statement, it was Sam's face that flushed red.

"I don't get you. At all."

Gabriel shrugged helplessly.

"Come on, Sam. Just let me whisk you away," he said. "It'll be fun! Like a game!"

"Coming from you, that's not reassuring."

"Just this once?"

Sam considered it.

"And you'll stop bugging me?" the hunter questioned.

"Scout's honor!"

Sam rolled his eyes but nodded. Gabriel's smile lit up the room, and he snapped his fingers. The red streamers and balloons returned, but instead of a dance floor the bunker's furniture was replaced with a couch and a home entertainment system. The angel dragged Sam over to the couch and skipped off.

"O…kay…" Sam muttered to himself, tucking some wayward strands of hair behind his ear.

Gabriel returned with a bucket of popcorn, more sweets than anyone could feasibly eat in one night, and a DVD case. Sam just watched as Gabriel set everything out where he wanted it, but said nothing about the nest-like formation of objects. After popping the DVD into the player, Gabriel leapt back onto the couch, resisting the urge to snuggle up to Sam.

"Titanic?" Sam asked with a snort when the DVD menu started up.

"Oh, shush, you know you love it."

And despite Sam's clear skepticism, he actually did join Gabriel in singing along to the movie's songs in stupid voices. When Jack and Rose were standing at the bow of the ship, Gabriel tugged on Sam's plaid sleeve and jumped to his feet on the couch.

"Come on, Sambo. Be my Jack!"

And though he rolled his eyes, Sam stood up on the couch behind Gabriel, and put his arms on the archangel's waist. They held the pose for all of three seconds before Gabriel whispered "Oh, Sam!" in a girly voice and Sam laughed so hard that they both nearly toppled off the couch.

When Gabriel waggled his eyebrows at Sam during the sex scene, he got a handful of popcorn tossed at his face, which led to a food fight spanning a good ten minutes. They both laughed at the guy who hit the propeller when falling off the Titanic, and at the very end of Celine Dion's song, Sam recounted with an amused look on his face how Balthazar unsank the Titanic, claiming it was because he hated the movie so much. Gabriel grinned to himself, and admitted to Sam that he wouldn't put it past his little brother to have done something like that.

By the time the credits were finished rolling, Gabriel was munching absently on a chocolate bar, and his head had somehow made its way to lean against Sam's bicep. He only moved when Sam cleared his throat, and even then it was just to sit up straight.

"Well…" the brunette started. "That's that, I guess."

Gabriel nodded.

"Yup, I guess it is."

"That was actually kind of nice, you know?" Sam confessed, looking startled even as he said it. "I, uh… I had fun. That was actually the most interesting Valentine's Day I've had since Famine showed up. And infinitely better than _that_."

Sam pulled a face at the thought of Famine before letting his features fall into something calm and content. Gabriel's eyes glittered, and his smile went wide and pleased.

"So you did miss me!"

Sam's eyes shifted from soft, even vulnerable, to unimpressed. But that was to be expected. Gabriel's grin wilted a little, and he looked down at his swinging his feet.

"Well. I missed you, anyway," the archangel admitted.

Sam's face contorted in mild confusion.

"What?" he demanded, as if Gabriel had gone completely out of character.

And maybe he had. Sure, he was smooth and charming (and hey, a porn star to boot), but… It had been a long time since Gabriel had let himself be so vulnerable around another person. That was the reason he had had a thing with Kali in the first place; she didn't tolerate weakness, or vulnerability, or sweetness. So he could keep that all buried deep down. Be a callous trickster asshole and keep everything else tucked away where no one could see. Kali was dangerous, but oh, how she was safe.

Sam, on the other hand…

Before he could finish his thought, Gabriel leaned his forehead against Sam's.

"You're really beautiful, you know? And terrifying," admitted the archangel.

Sam blinked slowly. He leaned back. Then he opened his mouth to speak.

Gabriel snapped his fingers.


	4. Trickster AU

**A/N: Ohhhh, if only I owned Supernatural~ But I don't. **

**I swear, it's going to stop being angsty soon, it's going to get funny sometime… I promise. Seriously, guys, I have a Bakery AU chapter in the works, and one where Sam and Gabe are both cosplayers of themselves at Becky's Supernatural convention. It'll be **_**hilarious**_**. Gabriel just needs to build up some momentum (and self-esteem) first.**

* * *

**Chapter 4: It is I, Loki**

When Gabriel found himself in an empty warehouse, he began to realize that there were consequences to snapping before he thought. It was similar to the abandoned place he'd used as a stage when trapping the super Winchester bros in TV Land, but somehow the atmosphere was different. An orange glare of late-afternoon sunlight pooled on the floor, and dust motes swirled lazily through its beam. Gabriel was halfway to snapping his fingers again when he heard a voice from behind him.

"It's you."

The archangel spun around, tilting his head to the side as he faced the door. And there, looking too much like a very stubborn chocolate lab in human form, was Sam Winchester. Gabriel smiled.

"The trickster."

The archangel faltered upon hearing himself referred to that way, but decided to just roll with it. Maybe his subconscious knew best.

"Hi, Sambo!"

A line appeared, trailing down from the right side of Sam's nose as his frown transformed into a full-blown snarl. Gabriel stepped back and held up his hands, eyes wide. With long strides, Sam advanced slowly across the concrete floor. The tense gait in his legs was familiar, but Gabriel couldn't figure out where he had seen it before. Until he chanced locking eyes with Sam, and the darkness in them shot straight to his chest.

_Oh._

Mystery Spot.

Sam looked like he had walked straight out of Mystery Spot. Ohhhh Dad. He was uber-boned.

"Now, Sam, we can settle this amiably…" Gabriel said, taking three measured steps back.

Sam just smirked and held up a wooden stake. Gabriel opened his mouth to talk, then closed it again unsure what might come out of his mouth if he were to actually speak. Finally, he fell back on instinct and snapped his fingers. The wooden stake disappeared, and Sam slammed back into the wall with a measured, non-injury-inducing thud.

"Let me go."

Gabriel frowned contemplatively and tipped his head from one side to the other, as if he were debating.

"Sorry. Can't do that. You," he poked a finger into Sam's chest, "want to kill me. And I don't like dying. So. Maybe if you calm down for a sec…"

"You give me back my brother you son of a bitch!" the hunter shouted, struggling wildly against the telekinetic hold pinning him to the wall.

That wasn't exactly calming down, now, was it? As usual, Sam had learned nothing about his dangerous codependency on his brother, but that was neither here nor there. Gabriel wasn't looking to impress any life lessons on the Winchesters. So, no harm in granting a few favors. He snapped his fingers and Dean appeared, looking bewildered.

"There. Happy? Good? Will you calm down now?" the archangel asked impatiently.

All of the fight drained out of Sam, and he just blinked at Gabriel as if seeing him for the first time. Dean, on the other hand, wasn't as hindered by his own confusion. He rushed at Gabriel, who flicked his wrist and sent the elder Winchester soaring into the opposite wall. Everyone winced at the bang of the collision, and Gabriel had an apology on the tip of his tongue before he remembered that Dean had just tried to attack him and that getting a smacking served him right. Then, hands on his waist, Gabriel turned in a circle to study his handiwork.

"What do you want?" Sam demanded from behind him.

Looking Sam in the eye, Gabriel tilted his head to the side.

"What do I want?" he repeated.

That made him pause, with a goofy-looking thoughtful frown on his face. What did he want? Well, he wanted a date with Sam Winchester, of course. That was the whole point of the stupid exercise in the first place. And then he realized how the dynamic had shifted, that something about still being the trickster lit a fire in his chest. Gabriel smirked. He walked up to Sam and leaned up on his toes to see the hunter eye-to-eye.

"A kiss would be nice, Sammy-boy."

Tension flitted across Sam's face for a single second before his expression settled on annoyed disbelief.

"What?"

"Oh, come _on_, gigantor!" Gabriel goaded, letting out a short laugh. "You're quite the catch, is it too hard to believe someone like me would have an interest in a pretty thing like you?"

Sam's eyes narrowed and his lips pursed into something of a frown. Gabriel just waggled his eyebrows in response, taunting the hunter to come up with a better adjective for himself. A smooth tension filled the air; thick enough to taste on the tongue. Gabriel wetted his lips experimentally. Caramel. Sexual tension with Sam Winchester tasted like caramel. It was only peripherally that he noticed Sam shift a little. Those hazel eyes were locked on him, on his lips. A tingle hit the archangel's fingers and rushed up his veins to hit his heart like a static shock. The surge blasted across Gabriel's eyes, amber irises flashing intensely though the rest of his expression stayed composed.

"Hey, you back off my brother, you diabetes-riddled creep!" Dean shouted from across the room, trying to tug his arms away from the wall.

Gabriel looked up at the ceiling and offered a long-suffering sigh to the stale air.

"That's Loki to you, Deano."

For good measure, he snapped his fingers to silence Dean. Another interruption would just be tedious. Then he turned his attention back on Sam, awaiting his response with calculating golden eyes. If possible, Sam looked even more flustered and confused. His gaze kept flitting between Gabriel and Dean, and his adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed.

"Loki…? The," Sam's voice rasped, cracked. "The Norse trickster god?"

"Guilty," said Gabriel. "I guess I never have introduced myself to you boys, have I?"

Sam shook his head.

"You can make supermodels appear out of nowhere by snapping your fingers," the brown-haired hunter pointed out with the barest hint of a tremor in his voice. "What do you want a kiss from me for?"

The squint to his hazel eyes tipped off Gabriel that Sam had purposely left off the stereotypical 'and I thought you were straight' that would have had him slamming his forehead against a wall. So thank Dad for that. But in turn, it necessitated a response that the poor gangly hunter would accept. That would be harder.

"I like you, Sam," Gabriel said at last, shrugging. "You complement me. The yin to my yang. Plus it seems like a lot more fun to seduce you than to kill you."

Gabriel rolled his shoulders back, walking more confidently, eyes more mischievous. Slipping back into Loki was like sliding into a warm bubble bath. Easy. Comforting. And deliciously freeing. He shot a wink Sam's way, and marveled at how quickly the hunter's cheeks tinted pink. Then he chanced a glance at Dean, who was looking both utterly scandalized and disgusted, with his eyes bugging out of his head. Everything was so much easier this way. Everything was simpler.

"And if I…" Sam appeared to battle with the words on his tongue for a moment, "Kiss you. You'll let my brother and I go?"

A bang rattled through the warehouse. Sam and Gabriel's eyes flashed to Dean, who had slammed the back of his head against the metal wall; as a substitute for verbal protests most likely. Gabriel wiggled his fingers at the elder Winchester in a mocking wave, and then returned his attention to Sam once more.

"Sure thing. You're in the wind," he agreed amiably, because that was what tricksters did.

They got their jollies and were on their way. That was how Loki lived, and it was perfectly fine. Sam was pretty, and that was that. Of course, trying to convince himself of that mindset brought Gabriel screaming to the forefront, because no that wasn't it at all. The fight was a practiced one that didn't show on his face except by the lightening and darkening of Gabriel's butterscotch irises.

"Alright. Fine," said Sam suddenly.

There had been no conclusive winner, but neither Gabriel nor Loki were about to pass up a chance to kiss Sam Winchester. Leaning up on the toes of his clean white tennis shoes, Gabriel took Sam's face into his square hands. Studied him, just for a moment, every eyelash, every blemish and mark. The uncertainty of the emotions swirling in his eyes, as varied as the flecks of color within them.

And then Gabriel pressed their lips together.

It was burning, hotter than the scorching tips of Michael's wings. It was icy, more bitingly cold than the razor-sharp edge of Lucifer's frosty diamond feathers. Everything aligned. And he would never, _ever_, admit it to anyone. Because it was a revelation too cliché, too cheesy even for Gabriel, who had starred in Casa Erotica without even a prick of shame or embarrassment, and who had acted Metatron's middle-grade writing to the letter with nary a flinch.

Sam Winchester's lips were not soft. They were rough, a little chapped. Hunter-esque, really; the fulfillment of an obvious stereotype. The beginnings of stubble prickled on the pads of Gabriel's fingers as he brushed a thumb along Sam's cheekbone.

He hadn't even realized he'd let his telekinetic hold on them go, not until Dean's battle cry was ringing in his ears and something pointed and wooden was crunching through his shoulder blade into his heart.

Oh.

Blinking, Gabriel fell back into Dean's chest, and then collapsed onto the ground when the hunter stepped away and offered no support.

It wouldn't kill him.

Gabriel knew that, thought it dazedly as he stared up at the Winchesters, who were looking back down at him. For two reasons. Because this was an illusion, and because no matter what he was still an archangel underneath it all. Except that this felt different. It wasn't just a matter of playing dead, as he had so many times before. It was almost like…

The stake had actually worked?

Oh. So he was the trickster. He was Loki for real this time.

Interesting.

Dean's jaw was set, hard and strong. His green eyes were bright; steely. Sam looked… Torn. His lips were a little red, his breaths a little uneven. The sunlight streaming through a crack in a window high above them fell on his face like divinity, and highlighted a fleck of… Of regret, maybe, in the lower corner of his iris, closest to the pupil. Just the barest hint. Staring at him was like looking into the sun, Gabriel thought. Like looking into the middle of a fight between his brothers. Gabriel's vision hazed, but whether it was tears or his fake death or something else entirely, it was hard to say.

"Til next time, Sammy-boy," he rasped, shaming the brothers with a wide, unseeing, tricksterish grin.

Then Gabriel closed his eyes, pictured things properly this time, and snapped his fingers.


	5. Kidnapping AU

**A/N: I don't own Supernatural, really. If I did, we'd be seeing all our friends from the Apocalypse arc again in S10, which I highly doubt is gonna happen.**

**As an added note, I don't think I've openly explained this in the text itself, but this story is all set in an imaginary moment sometime after S10. Everything has calmed down, Dean's human, Mike, Luci, and Adam are all out of the Cage, the God Squad isn't so batshit and homicidal, etc. etc. etc. Basically, I just needed a made up timeline where the whole friggin' world wasn't on the line for once. No doubt this will be highly canon divergent come the S10 finale, but then again if things finally calmed down for Sam and Dean it would be the end of the show, so…**

**ANYWAY. Without further ado, I present Chapter 5.**

* * *

**Chapter 5: We're Going on a Moose Hunt (Starring Crowley)**

The office was fancy, very posh, from what Gabriel could see. Three plush armchairs were seated at a desk, two smaller on one side, and the largest on the other, facing the drawers. Logs in a little brick fireplace in the corner crackled merrily, and windows at the opposite end of the large room were framed in crimson drapes and overlooked some spacious and well-kept grounds. By the light filtering through the panes, it was late evening. Gabriel's nose twitched with the scent of sulfur and holy oil.

"Do I know you?" the demon asked skeptically, placing his hands behind his back slowly and carefully in a way that assured his impeccably tailored suit wouldn't wrinkle.

"Well, you might have heard of me," Gabriel said with a shrug, tilting his head to get a good look over the tongues of holy fire flame that surrounded him. "Gabriel. The archangel."

A startled, interested look passed over Crowley's face at the proclamation.

"An archangel? To what do I owe the pleasure? I hope you're not thinking of smiting me, I just had this suit dry cleaned, and I've got a date with Moose and Squirrel in…" he pulled his right wrist up to eye level, examining the watch there. "Now."

The wooden double doors to the office flew open with a bang.

"Huh. Right on time," said Gabriel.

"Those doors were _hand carved_ out of _mahogany_!" Crowley shouted, the muscles of his neck tensing. "Bloody philistines."

It took him a few seconds, an unnecessary adjustment of his necktie, and a toss of his head for the demon to compose himself. The words 'drama queen' were tempting on the tip of Gabriel's tongue, but he refrained. Then Crowley smiled at the Winchesters insincerely, looking a bit strained.

"Hello boys."

Dean opened his mouth to say something rude, but when his green eyes caught on Gabriel he just let his mouth hang open. A furrow wedged itself between Sam's brows as he looked back and forth between the demon and archangel who had been waiting on them. Like Dean, he opened his mouth to talk. Unlike Dean, he immediately closed it again. Then he squeezed his eyes shut before blinking them a few times as if the image would dissipate.

"Um. Uh, Gabriel?" Sam said at last, voice pitched up in confusion.

"Hey there, Sambo," the angel greeted with a cheeky smile. "Good to see you again."

"You're…" Sam faltered. "You're dead."

"Am I?"

Crowley's brows twitched down for just a second, and his eyes narrowed.

"I see you three know each other," the demon began casually.

"Oh sure!" Gabriel chimed in before either of the Winchesters could. "The boys and I go way back!"

"Funny. An archangel was never mentioned on Moose and Squirrel's list of assets."

Gabriel shrugged. The he glanced to the side and locked gazes with Sam, eyes burning dark amber and offset by the teasing lilt of his brow. Everything went silent beneath the white noise of fizzing flame. It was Dean who broke the awkward verbal stalemate.

"Look, Crowley, we know you have the cupid reversal spell, so just hand it over," he demanded, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

Though no one was paying him any particular attention, Gabriel waggled his eyebrows. Ah, cupids. True, he could waste time being morally conflicted about the idea of forcing two people to fall in love without their knowledge or consent, but the cupids themselves were too much fun. And, truthfully, without their potentially skillful handiwork, there would be no sasquatch-tall Sam Winchester to look at him soulfully with hazel eyes. And wouldn't that be a damned shame?

"Sure thing, Squirrel," said Crowley, with a slight shake of his head. "We are besties after all. But what about our uninvited friend here?"

The look on Dean's face screamed 'who cares?' in a way that made Gabriel's jaw tense. But it wasn't like he cared what Deano thought of him. Sure, he liked both of the Winchesters just for their idiotic audacity, their bullheadedness, but it wasn't Dean's approval he was looking for anyway.

"Now, come on, guys," the archangel said with a low smile. "I saved your asses a couple times when my bros were running rampant and raring for Judgment Day. I think you owe me one here."

"We don't owe you anything."

Dean's sneer set him off. Gabriel's gold eyes iced over, and his genial grin became thin and sharp. With a wide gesture of his hand, careful to skirt the holy flames circling him, Gabriel spoke again.

"Of course not! It's not like I fought my brother and _died_ for you two dicks, or that I gave you a plan to stop the Apocalypse or anything!" he laughed.

"Well, excuse me if I'm not falling over myself to make nice with the guy who killed me a hundred different times in one day, and trapped Sammy and I into fucking TV Land to try and get us to say yes to his douche brothers in the first place!"

Chins thrust out, the archangel and hunter glared at each other over the wall of flames separating them. Meanwhile, Crowley had moved to his desk and poured himself a bit of scotch to drink while he watched the proceedings.

"My, my. The latent sexual tension is getting me right in the naughty bits," he commented over the edge of his glass.

When Dean's green irises and Crowley's suggestive smirks started making nausea pool in Gabriel's abdomen, he glanced over at Sam. Sam, who still looked confused, whose gaze was cutting in a way Gabriel had not prepared himself for.

"Crowley," Sam said quietly, not looking away from the archangel trapped in front of him.

"Yes, Moose?"

"Let him go."

Dean turned bodily towards his brother, throwing his arms out in disbelief.

"Oh, come on, Sam!" he scoffed. "What do we care about this dick? We're here for the spell, remember?"

Sam's eyes cornered to the patterned carpet. Gabriel wanted to reach over and place a hand on his cheek. But the fire blocking his path stopped him before his hand had no more than twitched.

"Ooh, I sense marital troubles on the horizon," interjected Crowley, swirling his drink. "Come on, Squirrel, I was your mistress, why shouldn't Moose have one? Even if his taste isn't nearly as sophisticated as yours."

"Oh please," mocked Gabriel. "I'm the _definition_ of class. I was strutting through stardust before your roasty-toasty soul was a twisted thought in Luci's head. And even with holy fire in the way it's not hard to tell who has the best ass in the room. No offense, Sambo."

A quick burst of laughter jumped out of Sam's lips, and Gabriel gave himself a mental pat on the back. Eyes still a little wide and innocent from the unexpected mirth, Sam turned his gaze on his elder brother.

"Dean. Come on. Please."

To his credit, Dean held up for all of a good three seconds before caving. Then, taking purposeful strides, he made his way to Crowley's desk and slammed his right hand on it like a parent who had been convinced by his manipulative little kiddo to get that extra candy bar.

"Fine. We'll take the archangel too."

Gabriel rocked from side to side a bit, grinning.

"Gonna keep me, Sammy-boy?" he teased.

"Shut up, I can still change my mind," Sam muttered, stealing a glance at Gabriel before rolling his shoulders and focusing on Dean and Crowley.

"You won't, though."

And somehow, Gabriel knew that was true. Whether it was a product of growing confidence or simply an observation of the half-guilt on Sam's face. Crowley cleared his throat.

"Which of course all depends on whether I _let_ Moose and Squirrel take you away," the demon pointed out.

"Oh, you want me in the middle of your office?" Gabriel asked, putting a squared hand to his chest. "I don't know, Crowley, I usually like to do dinner before this sort of—"

"Hey! Both of you!" Dean snapped. "Shut up! Do we have a deal or not?"

"Deal?" Crowley's eyes narrowed, and his mouth pressed into a thin line. "And just what am I getting out of this? Because I haven't heard any offers thrown my way."

"An archangel out of your office," Sam spat back.

"Maybe I like him where he is," the crossroads demon retorted, knocking back the alcohol left in his glass and then motioning at Gabriel with the empty tumbler.

"You think I'm hot now, let me out of the fire."

"Oh, I don't think so, angel boy."

"The cupid spell!" Dean shouted, slamming both hands down on Crowley's desk with a crack.

The demon's smirk went sultry and charismatic again. Then he pulled a sheet of paper from out of a drawer in his desk. Dean snatched it away, scanning the words to make sure he wasn't being duped, which was more than Gabriel had expected of him.

"Happy?" asked Crowley.

Dean jutted his thumb over his shoulder rudely to gesture at Gabriel.

"Now the angel."

Crowley heaved a large sigh and did nothing.

"That, you're going to have to pay for. Sorry Squirrel. An archangel on a leash is always good news in my opinion."

"Kinky," Gabriel chimed in.

Dean just seethed silently. Sam stepped up next to his brother and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Look, just tell us what you want, Crowley," the younger Winchester brother said with an irritated exhale.

"Well, now that you ask, Moose… I wouldn't mind having a Winchester or two at my beck and call again."

"No."

Dean's denial was firm, issuing ferally from somewhere at the base of his throat. Gabriel watched the proceedings with interest, head tilted slightly to the left. Sam shifted on his feet. All at once, the archangel realized that the light that had been fading in through the windows had darkened into dusky shadows. It was a steep price, and maybe it was unfair to use ransom as a test of affection. Especially since he could still access his grace even within a ring of holy fire.

But then Sam glanced back at him, met his eyes with a burning sort of determination, and Gabriel couldn't move. It took all the dignity left in him not to gulp a breath of air when Sam finally looked away and turned back to the negotiations.

"One favor, Crowley. That's the deal."

The words were solid, unmoving. Sam's shoulders were squared, head lifted so that the brunette stared quite literally down his nose at the demon before him. Piecing the hunter's body language together bit by bit, Crowley nodded.

"Fine. One favor. Pucker up, Bullwinkle."

Gabriel's upper lip twitched into a snarl. Every light fixture in Crowley's office exploded, leaving them all shadowed but for the flickering firelight of the heart and the circle of flame ringing Gabriel in. The demon looked around his office with wide eyes, before settling his gaze firmly on Gabriel.

"Oh ho, I see," he mused.

"Gabriel?" Sam muttered, blinking at the sudden relative brightness of the holy fire.

"Oops," the archangel said nonchalantly. "Had to sneeze."

"That's fine," Crowley goaded huskily. "Firelight is much more romantic, don't you think?"

And if he wasn't ringed into a section of floor with a diameter of six feet, Gabriel would have flared his wings and really given the demon a show. But even at their smallest, his wings had a full span of thirty feet, and while they could mold to the curves of a wall, holy oil was much less forgiving. Instead he settled for the hellfire look he had learned from Lucifer, the one that forcibly shoved lesser creatures into their places.

"Oh, my god," Dean groaned. "Will you two douches get over your pissing match already?"

"Dean's right," added Sam. "We have a deal everyone's agreed to, let's finish it."

He leaned over and pressed his lips to Crowley's. The disgusted shudder that raced up and down his endless spine wasn't quite comfort enough. Gabriel's lips tingled with the memory of his kiss in the warehouse, and the knowledge that no two-bit sales demon deserved a privilege like that. The second Crowley had banished the holy fire, Gabriel was at Sam's side, appearances be damned.

"Uh… Gabriel?" the taller Winchester asked.

"Yeah, gigantor?"

Sam sighed.

"Nevermind. Come on, Dean."

"Finally," Dean muttered. "We've already spent too much time in this stewpot of crazy."

The two brothers walked to the office's double doors, still flung wide open and jammed against the walls on either side, together. Neither one looked back.

"See you around, Gabriel," Sam tossed over his shoulder.

"God, I hope not," Dean scoffed.

Gabriel swallowed back the feeling of something like an angel blade wrenching his chest. This was his scenario. He was in control.

He was in control.

A cool shock of grace surged up Gabriel's spine, sending a shudder through his frame.

"Sam!"

At the shout the hunter turned back, dark hair swinging gently at the movement.

"What?" he asked, shoulders rising in a half-shrug of confusion.

With a flap of wings, Gabriel was right in front of him, looking up a good half a foot.

"Can't get rid of me that easy, Sambo. Not sure if you've noticed, but we archangels are pretty clingy."

"And just what's that supposed to mean?"

Gabriel quirked an eyebrow up and smirked. Then, with his monstrous angel strength, he took two fistfuls of Sam's predictably plaid shirt and tugged him down to a more manageable height.

"This is me standing up," he said wryly. "And claiming what's mine. You might be Luci's true vessel, but you're my human."

Gabriel pressed his lips to Sam's, gently and with much less urgency than he had shown in the warehouse. This time, it wasn't hot or cold; just comfortably, soothingly warm. Melted chocolate warm. Maybe even sensual. After four and a half seconds with no response, the archangel pulled away, all but shoving Sam back into a straight-backed position again.

"Dude, what the hell-?"

Sam blustered, unable to get out a single coherent word after that. His hazel irises were little more than thin rings around his dilated pupils. His giant hands were trembling.

"Trust me, Sam. Maybe I'm not quite up to par now, but I'll win the real you over yet. Don't think I won't."

With the familiar glint of confidence back in his eyes, Gabriel winked and snapped his fingers.


	6. Janitor AU

**A/N: I don't own Supernatural, but I do own four seasons' worth of DVDs, and two fringe-canon novels.**

**Anyone think I should change the genre? I keep promising that it'll get funnier, and it will, but I'm not exactly sure that humor is one of the main focuses anymore. Sam and Gabe have a lot of serious shit to work through, after all.**

**This one is shorter than usual, since I realized the chapter 6 I wrote yesterday would make a better chapter 100…**

**By the way, Belle Plains is the name I made up for the Tall Tales college, since I couldn't find one anywhere.**

**As usual, AU suggestions are welcome, I've only got 35 or 40 right now, so less than half.**

* * *

**Chapter 6: Hanging with the Help**

Gabriel rolled his shoulders, getting accustomed to his old janitorial uniform again with a slight smile. It had been too long. Whistling aimlessly, the archangel pushed his cart down the college hallway. So. Stanford. To be honest, he preferred the small-town Midwest campus of Belle Plains Community College to sprawling bigwig universities like Stanford. But Stanford meant Sam.

The hallway lights were still on, for the most part, but it was midnight on the dot. And, as a dutiful member of the janitorial and security staff, Gabriel had to make sure all the good little law students were out of the building before he locked up, didn't he? Gabriel left the hall and entered one of the library rooms.

Sam wasn't hard to find.

The bluish technological glow of his laptop lit up the darkened area around him. Leaning on his mop's handle, Gabriel watched Sam sleep. He looked peaceful, in a way that Gabriel had never seen him be firsthand. His head rested at the elbow juncture of his right arm, which was sprawled in front of him along with the left one. Soft, fluffy brown hair haloed his head.

"And I'm supposed to be the angel," Gabriel joked to himself.

Shaking his head, he tapped Sam on the shoulder. The law student shifted his head slightly and made the most adorable sleepy noise.

"Five more minutes, Dean…" he mumbled.

With a snort of laughter, Gabriel tugged on Sam's hair. He finally sat up with a start, looking around wildly. After blinking hard a few times to get used to the glare of his laptop in the dim room, he met Gabriel's eyes with his own. They were a little red-rimmed, and the bags under his eyes sent a bit of a twinge into Gabriel's chest, just above his heart.

"Hey, kiddo. I'm locking up, so unless you wanna sleep here for the night…"

Sam nodded, then covered his mouth as he let out a yawn.

"Yeah… Yeah, sorry," he said, closing his laptop and shoving it into the backpack lying next to his chair. "That's the third time this week, isn't it?"

Gabriel smiled and waved the apology away, shrugging his shoulders.

"No problem. I'll walk you out."

Sam nodded, slipping on the backpack and following the clatter of Gabriel's janitorial cart out into the lit hallway. The two of them walked in silence for a long ways. Gabriel kept glancing over at Sam, but the brunette kept his eyes on his large shoes.

"What were you working on?" the janitor asked quietly.

"Hm? I uh… Just studying."

"You study a lot. Not a party guy?"

Sam chuckled under his breath, then shook his head.

"Just, uh…" he carded a hand through his hair. "Just nervous, I guess. I only got into the program recently."

"Dunno why you're so worried," Gabriel said with a shrug of his shoulders. "You're the talk of the town, Sambo."

Sam blinked, looked at Gabriel, and then promptly tripped over his own feet. Thankfully, the big lug caught himself, landing on his forearms, so his head didn't hit the floor. He lay on the floor for a few long seconds, as if he wasn't quite sure how he had ended up so low to the ground. Gabriel thought about mentioning that the air was a bit thicker than Sam might be used to, but didn't. Abandoning his cart instead, he crouched down.

"Um," said Sam as they locked gazes.

Rolling his eyes but with a small grin, Gabriel locked a hand around Sam's right bicep.

"Up you get, Winchester."

Thanks to his archangel strength, it was nothing to haul Sam back to his feet. The law student looked a bit startled, but didn't comment. Just nodded his head.

"How, uh… What did you mean, talk of the town?" he asked Gabriel quietly.

"All the professors that come through here talk about you. When they think no one's listening, of course. But then again, nobody takes much notice of me, I'm just the janitor after all."

Sam looked slightly green under the fluorescent lighting as Gabriel continued to ramble. He pressed a large palm to his forehead.

"Oh, god."

"All good things, I promise," vowed Gabriel, placing a hand over his heart.

"That might actually be worse," Sam admitted.

Gabriel bumped his shoulder against Sam's arm gently, and smiled when the brunette looked down at him. Sam's tired eyes softened a little.

"Hey, you know, it's always handy to have a janitor on your side," Gabriel pointed out. "If you ever need somewhere to hide from starstruck professors. And classmates."

"Starstruck?"

"Sure. I've found at least five love letters addressed to you just tonight," Gabriel joked, nodding his head towards the trash can on his cart.

Sam buried his face in his hands, long fingers inadvertently mussing up his bangs.

"It's too late at night for me to be able to tell if you're joking or not," he mumbled.

A bright laugh shot out of Gabriel's mouth.

"Nah, I was just messing with you."

The halfhearted glare Sam shot Gabriel, after letting his large hands fall to his sides, was enough to get the archangel to waggle his eyebrows mischievously. After that, a quiet sort of tension in Sam's shoulders disappeared. The law student shifted his backpack a little.

"Uh, hey… I guess I haven't asked the last few nights… What's your name?"

"Teddy Page, janitor extraordinaire, at your service," greeted Gabriel with a low bow. "I've been looking after the yahoos in the prestigious Robert Crown Law Library for… About three years now."

"You know, I think I _have_ seen you around," Sam said thoughtfully. "Besides when you're kicking me out, I mean."

Gabriel returned a brilliant smile.

"Well, I do have an actual job to do besides babysitting you, you know. So, whadda ya say?" he offered. "Might be a little passé to hang with the help but-"

"Don't say that," protested Sam. "You… You do honest work, you know?"

Gabriel stared up into Sam's eyes, studying him. An awkward silence passed for a few seconds until Sam suddenly tore his gaze away and began walking down the hallway again. Startled, Gabriel grabbed his cart and rushed after him.

"Hey. Everything alright?"

"Yeah."

But the answer was too quick to be the truth, and Gabriel frowned.

"Hey, come on Sambo. We're pals now, right? You can tell me," he insisted.

"It's nothing."

Gabriel let out an exaggerated huff of frustration, and saw Sam roll his eyes a little. The two of them kept walking to the click-clack of Gabriel's cart's wheels.

"I was just thinking about my brother," Sam admitted half a minute later.

"Dean, right?"

Sam blinked, then looked at Gabriel with some suspicion.

"How did you know that?" he demanded.

Gabriel shrugged, keeping a leisurely, swaggering pace over the shiny tile floor.

"You mumbled about him when I tried to wake you up."

Sam's expression was still a little tight, but he appeared to accept the explanation at face value. He looked up at the ceiling, then down at the floor, and finally spoke again.

"I miss him."

Gabriel nodded.

"I miss mine too."

The two didn't speak any more after that, but shared a sad smile. When they finally reached the front doors, Gabriel paused. Sam continued walking. He opened the door, took half a step out, and then turned back.

"Hey, Teddy?"

"Yeah, Sam?"

"If I… Maybe… Stayed late tomorrow night…" Sam trailed off, shoving his hands in the pockets of his slacks.

"Yes?" Gabriel prompted, waving him on.

"Could we talk again?"

"Sure thing, kiddo," the archangel promised. "Should I be bringing you a coffee?"

Sam laughed.

"That might be nice," he agreed.

Gabriel grinned, leaning against his mop's handle.

"What do you take?"

"Just black is fine."

Gabriel gasped, contorting his features into a scandalized look and pressing a hand to his chest.

"_Blasphemy_," he exclaimed. "How could you possibly drink anything without sugar?"

Sam pulled a face, then shook his head.

"That's right, _you're_ the janitor who's always eating chocolate bars," he recalled.

"If you bring me one tomorrow, I might tell you something interesting about the library," said Gabriel. "I know all its secrets, after all."

Sam perked up at that, hooking his thumbs through his bag straps. Gabriel's heart gave a heavy thud in his chest. Even when off the job, living a boring, everyday life, Sam was curious. The way the light hit his wide eyes when he was interested in something was a shock to the system for sure.

As Gabriel was still thinking, Sam took a full step out the doors, though still holding one open with his hand.

"I'll make sure to nab a Snickers from one of the vending machines," he promised.

"Yeah, that's the stuff, Sammy-boy!"

Sam grinned, nodded, and glanced away.

"Well. See you tomorrow, then," Sam called over his shoulder before walking off into the night and letting the door slide closed.

"Kids these days," Gabriel muttered to himself, placing a hand over his heart and shooting a mock-pleading look at the ceiling.

With a bit of a spring in his step, he turned and walked back down the hallway in the direction he and Sam had come from. As he pushed his cart, he whistled and danced a bit before lifting the fingers of his right hand.

With a final twist of his hips to his made-up beat, Gabriel snapped his fingers.


	7. Bakery AU

**A/N: Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me, I just take them out of the box and let them run around sometimes.**

**Yes, I used Rob Benedict's band Louden Swain in the story. Honestly, if there's gonna be background music, how could I not, considering what besties he and Richard are? Plus I was listening to their music on repeat while I wrote this chapter.**

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**Chapter 7: Frosting Hearts Melt in the Sun**

Gabriel's shoulders eased into a position of comfort the second the smell of buttercream and baking dough hit his nose. A quick, satisfied glance around revealed a cozy little bakery cafe with black and white tile floors, red walls with cupcakes painted on them, and round tables. The soft sounds of a lesser-known rock band played tinny through old speakers set high on the walls. Rows and rows of cakes, cookies, pies, and breads lined the inside of the glass cases beneath the counter.

A few customers sat in little corner booths, benches framed up against the outer walls. And then the bell on the door tinkled and in stepped Sam Winchester. Ok, well sure, Dean was with him too, eyes locked on the pie section, but that wasn't important. Gabriel's mouth turned up in a smile, and he kept his eyes on Sam.

"Hey there, boys. What can I get you?" he asked.

"Pie," answered Dean, without a second's hesitation.

Gabriel's eyebrows lifted towards his hairline and his grin turned mischievous.

"What flavor? We have lots," the archangel pointed out.

That distracted the elder Winchester, who excused himself to practically press his nose against the glass of the pie case. The archangel reminded himself to wipe down the front of the case, which was already fogging up with Dean's hot breath, later. Gabriel leaned his elbows on the counter, laced his fingers together, and rested his chin casually atop his hands, eyes locked on Sam's. Sam, in return, shifted a little, flashed him an uncomfortable smile, and inclined his head towards Dean.

"Sorry about him. He, uh… He likes pie."

"Not a crime," Gabriel dismissed, not even bothering to flick his eyes over to Dean. "Anything I can get _you_?"

"I'm not really a big uh… Sweets kind of guy," deflected Sam.

"We've got artisan bread?"

Gabriel shrugged, and actually managed to pull a laugh out of Sam at that. The smile that flickered across his face was more genuine, and he actually met Gabriel's eyes. Before Sam could respond, Dean was shoving past him to talk to Gabriel.

"A slice of pecan and a slice of cherry," he said with the kind of purpose generally reserved for life-changing decisions.

"Sure thing."

Gabriel couldn't help the bit of fondness in his voice. For all of a stubborn dick that Dean was, he was a good kid. With good taste in pie. The archangel plated up a slice each of cherry and pecan pie, then handed them over. Dean snagged the plate and pulled out his wallet with his free hand. Gabriel shot Sam a questioning look again, but the brunette just shook his head.

Ridiculous moose.

After all, when working behind a counter, all flirting interaction relied on the actual exchange of goods and services involved. The scene would never play out right if Sam kept to himself.

"Come on," Gabriel pressed. "Try something. I promise it's all good. Scout's honor."

Dean elbowed his brother a bit.

"Yeah, come on, Sammy. Stow your crap for once and live a little. You gotta eat something besides salad in a cup."

"Dean, I do not just eat-" Sam began, but gave up when he realized his brother wasn't even listening. "Fine. Fine," he paused, "what, uh… What would you recommend?"

Gabriel's smile lit up like the sun.

"I've got a dark chocolate brownie you might like, if you're not into overly sweet things," he suggested.

Sam shrugged his shoulders and nodded. With a skip in his step, Gabriel pulled a brownie from the case, and set it on a little plate for Sam.

"How much?" Dean asked when both boys had their desserts.

"I'll give you the bill when you're done. Looks like you're gonna be staying for a bit," said Gabriel, gesturing vaguely at the laptop case slung over Sam's shoulder.

"If that's alright?" said Sam. "We've got some research to do…"

The archangel nodded his approval, and motioned to one of the only corner tables that was still open. Dean shot him a grin that was begging to be full of pie filling, Sam inclined his head a bit, and the brothers moved to sit at the suggested table. Gabriel watched them as discreetly as possible, straightening baked goods in their cases and wiping down the counter. He made sure to take a cloth to the glass of the pie case too. When he was done with that, Gabriel stood by the register again, resting on his forearms and studying the way Sam's hair swished when he turned to talk to his brother.

Sam looked up and his eyes were scorching.

Gabriel's subconscious saved the day with a well-timed wedding cake order. He jotted down the details to buy himself some time away from Sam's suspicion. When he looked up, the brunette's eyes were back on the screen of his battered silver laptop. Absently, clicking on a link with his right hand, he picked up the brownie with his left and took a bite. Chocolate crumbs caught on the corner of his mouth. Gabriel wetted his lips, which felt suddenly dry.

Mousse.

It was chocolate mousse, not chocolate moose.

He was able to startle himself out of wide-eyed staring with the joke, and made a note to thank Crowley for his ridiculous nicknames. Or bake him a cupcake or something. It was a good hour later when Gabriel scrounged up the courage to approach the table Sam and Dean had taken over. They were still looking at the laptop, muttering to each other about a case. Sam had managed to wipe away the crumbs.

"Hey boys!" the archangel greeted cheerfully, making the Winchesters jump.

"Oh, hey," replied Dean with a slight frown. "You need us to leave or something?"

"No, nothing like that!" Gabriel waved the suggestion away. "Actually, I thought you guys might want something to drink."

He held out two glasses of water, which the boys gladly accepted. When Gabriel didn't immediately leave, Sam cleared his throat.

"Thanks."

"No problem, Sammy."

He flinched at that.

"Uh, Sam is… Fine," the hunter muttered.

Gabriel returned what attempted to be a smile.

"Sure thing."

The tension was almost more cloying than the scent of sugar hanging in the air.

"Hey, so, who's this band?" Sam diverted suddenly, gesturing up at the speakers. "Their songs have been playing the whole time we've been here."

The noise of the band, which Gabriel's mind had turned to white noise only a few minutes in, faded back into the archangel's consciousness, and brought a slow grin to his face. His head bopped along to the beat slightly; it was one of the peppier songs. Of course, with Dean's over-insistence on classic rock, the boys wouldn't be all too familiar with a more contemporary band.

"Some band called Louden Swain," answered Gabriel with a casual shrug. "Reminds me of my dad, somehow. Soothing, you know."

Sam nodded, tilting his head to listen a bit closer.

"I like them."

"I can get you a CD, if you happen to come back some other time," Gabriel offered, before making his way back behind the counter, whistling along to the song.

_It's like teaching architecture to an—_

Gabriel froze suddenly, a cold shudder running up and down his spine. Frowning, he rubbed his arms and looked around, but nothing seemed out of place. Shaking his head, he straightened his apron and kept working efficiently, keeping a close eye on Sam. Whenever he could, he went back over to chat with them briefly, enough that Dean had started giving him suspicious, though not dangerous, looks.

Out of the corner of his eye, Gabriel noticed when Sam began to close his laptop and pack it away. With a clumsy clang, the archangel grabbed a pie tin and dished in a few slices of various flavors. The boys were just standing when he hurried over.

"Oh, hey, how much was our bill?" Dean asked.

"Twelve-fifty," Gabriel answered a little breathlessly, startled.

Dean pulled out a ten and two ones, then glanced at his brother.

"Sammy, you got the quarters?" he asked.

Sam bit his lip and nodded a little, digging in his pants pocket. He pulled out two quarters and dropped them in Dean's outstretched hand. Gabriel accepted the money, placing it carefully into the pocket of his apron. The Winchester brothers then took a step for the door.

"Wait!" Gabriel called.

They looked back at him, confused. He managed a flustered quirk of the lips.

"Here," he said, offering the mismatched pie slices. "On the house. You two yahoos look like you could use a little sweetness."

Dean zeroed in on the pie with religious intensity. Sam blinked a few times, expression warring between startled and touched. He was the one who ended up taking the pie from Gabriel's almost-shaking hands.

"Uh… Thank you…"

He trailed off, glancing at Gabriel through the corner of his eyes.

"Gabriel," the archangel supplied with a shaky grin.

"Yeah, you're the best, Gabe!" added Dean with a huge, sugary grin.

With a nod the brothers left, a little tinkle of the bell at the top of the door marking their exit. Once they were gone, all the other bakery patrons faded, and Gabriel all but pressed his nose to the glass door to watch them climb into the Impala.

As Sam handed the pie tin to Dean, a piece of paper slipped to the ground. Brow furrowed, Sam picked it up. Dean asked a question, but Sam didn't look up from the paper to answer it. Gabriel bit his lip as he watched. Dean threw out a remark before sliding into the Impala's driver seat. Sam went red, shouted something. Then he turned to look back at the bakery.

Their eyes connected through the glass like it wasn't even there.

Gabriel sucked in a breath. Sam waved hesitantly, offered a smile, a real one. Gabriel waved back. Then, Sam broke the connection and opened the passenger side door of the Impala. But he made a very obvious show of tucking the slip with Gabriel's phone number into the breast pocket of his plaid button-up.

Gabriel grinned like an idiot.

Dusting off his hands, he turned back to look fondly over the bakery one last time.

He was just about to snap his fingers when the cold shudder hit him again, and he knew for sure something was off. The music crackled to a stop in the middle of "Poptart Heart". The bakery's tasteful light fixtures flickered. A figure stood up from one of the tables that Gabriel had been sure was empty before. The blond man met his eyes and Gabriel froze.

"Hello, little brother."

Gabriel choked on his own breath and let out an undignified squeak. He recovered by clearing his throat with a fist to his mouth, looking everywhere but at the man across from him.

"Luci! H-hey, bro. What're you doing here?"

Lucifer crossed pale arms over his chest and quirked a single eyebrow.

"Were you going to ask my permission to try and court my True Vessel, Gabriel?"

Gabriel opened his mouth, pulled a face, closed his mouth again. He fidgeted, but did not snap his fingers. Instead, the youngest archangel offered a sheepish smile and a shrug.

"Surprise?"


	8. Truth Serum AU

**A/N: Don't own Supernatural or any of its characters, I just love them too much.**

**This chapter marks the beginning of a short five-chapter arc. Hope you enjoy it!**

**An added note: I'm trying to go through this entire 101-chapter saga without using a reference to whiskey to describe Gabriel's eyes, since I see it so often in Gabriel fics that it's become kind of a fandom stereotype. Wish me luck!**

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**Chapter 8: I Will Not Lie On the Chalkboard Fifty Times**

"Is that really all you have to say for yourself, Gabriel?" asked Lucifer. "I was sure you had a certain reputation as a liesmith of some renown."

Gabriel blushed to the tips of his ears, and tried to grin shamelessly.

"How did you know I was…?"

Lucifer tilted his head, shooting his little brother an amused look. The kind he had always used whenever Gabriel tried to trick him.

"Michael came back without you," he explained with a wave of his hand. "He's such a mother hen, I knew something was up. And not even Michael can lie to me."

Gabriel huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. He wasn't pouting, because pouting was something that all-powerful archangel Tricksters simply didn't _do_. Pouting was what stupid tall hunters named Sam Winchester did, and it was damn adorable.

"_Anyway_," Lucifer pressed, blue eyes sharp and a bit teasing. "What do you have to say for yourself, little brother?"

Gabriel thought about that for a minute.

"Nothing?"

"You wish to date my vessel, Gabriel."

Gabriel pressed his lips together into a thoughtful frown and nodded.

"Yeah… But so what, Luci?" he demanded with a shrug. "You and Michael called the Apocalypse off, right? You don't need Sambo as your vessel anymore."

Lucifer's eyes narrowed, and he took a threatening step forward.

"Regardless, he is still mine. He was made for me. I will be the judge of whether or not you will court him."

"Seriously, bro? Come _on_!"

"Michael informed me you are not even confident yourself he would accept you," Lucifer pointed out. "You have been practicing speaking to him."

Gabriel's eyes cornered to the floor tiles, expression twitching into a myriad of emotions.

"Yeah, so?" he muttered petulantly. "I'm sentimental. I wanna get it right is all."

The bakery fell silent. After a full minute, Gabriel chanced a look up to see if his brother had left. But Lucifer was just appraising him with a shark-like smile that reminded Gabriel with a lurch of his stomach of the Leviathan.

"Well, brother," Lucifer said, uncrossing his arms and holding up a hand to study its nails. "Since you are so very desperate to practice, allow me to put you through your paces."

Gabriel's face paled rapidly. Vertigo-inducing memories of being shoved through time and space and being told to find his way back flashed across the youngest archangel's vision.

"W-what—Luce, no-" he stammered.

With a guilty-child smile and a twist of Lucifer's wrist, Gabriel vanished.

He landed in the Men of Letters Bunker. Of course. To make matters worse, Lucifer had tripped him on the way over, so he landed sprawled across the tile with an embarrassingly loud thud bouncing off the walls and ceiling.

"Nice acoustics," he joked to himself, trying to mitigate the awkwardness.

"Uh… Gabriel?"

A pair of large shoes came into Gabriel's field of vision, and he took a long, bewildered moment to trace their contours with his eyes. Then he craned his head upwards. A pair of denim-clad legs came into view, then the hem of a plaid shirt, which stretched over a too-tall torso. Finally, neck at a painful angle, Gabriel found himself staring up at Sam Winchester.

"Hey Sambo."

"What are you doing here…?" Sam asked, shooting him an odd look.

Gabriel picked himself up slowly, debating the best cover story to go with. 'Just wanted to see you' was a bit flirty, but it would work. And if it didn't, he could just snap out. He wasn't a fledgling anymore. He knew his way between alternate worlds and illusional spaces like nobody's business. They were his specialty.

"Lucifer zapped me here because he's testing me," Gabriel said.

And then he paused. Frowned, furrowed his brow, turned his gaze down and left. That had not been what he meant to—

"Testing you?" Sam shook his head. "Why?"

And of course there was no way he could tell Sam something so ridiculously embarrassing, even if he was an illusion, which Gabriel had no proof of anyway.

"To see if he'll give me permission to ask you out," the archangel answered firmly.

Gabriel sucked in a breath so fast that he choked and started coughing. Sam opened his mouth and then closed it again.

"_What_?"

Something was wrong. Horribly wrong. So before he could blurt out anything else embarrassing, Gabriel held up the hand he wasn't hacking into and snapped his fingers.

After a beat, he snapped again.

And again, and again. But nothing happened. In fact, although he knew that in reality it was still with him and there was no way Lucifer would strip him of his grace just for a mean-spirited prank, Gabriel couldn't feel his powers at all.

_Oh no_.

"Luce! Luci! Lucifer you dick, this isn't funny!" Gabriel shouted at the ceiling of the bunker, voice cracking. "You can't just put the kibosh on a guy's powers like that!"

"Gabriel, are you… Alright?" Sam asked, placing a large hand on the archangel's shoulder and looking as if he were three seconds from calling a supernatural mental hospital.

"No," Gabriel answered promptly.

Thankfully, he was somehow able to swallow down the well of confessions itching their way up his throat by reminding them that Sam had really only asked him a yes or no question and elaboration was thoroughly unnecessary.

"So what's this about… Permission to ask me out…?" the brunette said slowly, looking like he felt he probably shouldn't have asked, which was a smart impression on his part.

With a labored sigh, Gabriel hopped up onto the map table. If he was going to be stuck puking up the truth left and right with no way to escape he might as well be comfortable while doing it.

"Luci dearest thinks I need his approval to date you since you're his true vessel and all."

Until it became too much and he stabbed himself with his archangel blade, at least.

But the second he thought that, there was a sudden lightness in his jacket pocket. Scandalized, Gabriel dug through his interior pocket, only to find it empty. Luce was probably laughing his smug ass off. The _dick_. Gabriel made sure to think that especially loudly.

And then his pants disappeared.

"Luce, what the hell?!" Gabriel squawked, burning bright red. "Give them back! I'll tell Michael on you!"

Sam slowly brought his hands up and rubbed his face, as if he could massage the image of Gabriel's red boxers out of his brain if only he tried and believed in himself. And while Gabriel had very little faith that would work and did in fact want Sam to someday see him in boxers and not have a reaction so strongly negative, he at least agreed with the hunter that it was neither the time nor the place for the appearance of undergarments (which was not something he said lightly, as Gabriel felt most times and places were appropriate for the appearance of undergarments) and wished Sam luck in bleaching the image from his mind.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, it didn't seem to work.

"Um," Sam started, keeping his eyes closed and his left hand on his temple. "Would you like me to get you some pants?"

Crossing his legs and bending at the waist to lean over them a little, Gabriel nodded.

"Yeah. Thanks gigantor."

Sam bustled off down the hallway, shaking his head. Gabriel's word vomit had him spitting out a comment or two about how nice Sam's ass was as he walked away, but he was at least able to keep them under his breath. Once Sam was completely gone, Lucifer made his appearance, dangling Gabriel's pants by a belt loop from his index finger. Scrambling off the table, the youngest archangel leapt at him in an attempt to get the garment back.

"Ah ah ah, little brother," Lucifer teased, and the pants vanished again. "So, have you figured out what I did yet?"

The bastard. He looked so pleased with himself. Maybe Dean was right about him being a heavyweight douchenozzle. Not that a dick like him was allowed to speak ill of Gabriel's brothers, no matter how correct he might be.

"I can't lie, ha ha very funny," the archangel snapped, mussing his fluffy hair and narrowing his eyes, which had darkened from amber to ochre.

"Aw, come on little brother," Lucifer razzed, grabbing Gabriel's shoulder and shaking it a bit. "You of all people should appreciate this."

"Yeah, yeah. Just desserts and all that," he muttered. "I get it."

"Exactly!"

The two of them turned towards the hallway at the slapping sound of Sam's steps. Lucifer smiled and vanished. Gabriel flipped the bird at the air where his brother had been. Then Sam turned the corner and offered Gabriel a pair of pants that they both knew would be stupidly big on him with a bit of a twist to his smile that said he was trying not to laugh. With a huff, Gabriel tugged on the jeans. They hung loosely around his hips and the pant legs pooled on the floor over his shoes.

"Sorry," Sam apologized with a chuckle. "They're Dean's. The smallest I could find."

"You muttonheads are stupid tall," said Gabriel, then blinked hard and shook his head. "Uh, thanks though."

"Sure, no problem."

Gabriel moved to go sit back on the map table, but tripped over the bottoms of the jeans and went sprawling onto the bunker floor again.

"Ow…"

Sam snickered, and Gabriel tossed the hunter a rueful glare over his shoulder as he clambered onto his hands and knees. Rolling his eyes, Sam offered a hand. Gabriel took it and squeezed his eyes shut as he concentrated on not blurting out how nice and warm Sam's hands were.

Gabriel expected the brunette to release him once he was standing, but that wasn't the case. Sam shifted his grip to Gabriel's wrist and stared at him as if contemplating something.

"So… Lucifer's making you tell the truth?" he asked cautiously.

"Basically," said Gabriel, trying to tug Dean's jeans higher on his hips with his one free hand. "The dick Jim Carrey'd me."

Sam tilted his head in a way that was unsettlingly angelic.

"And you want to date me? Why?"

Gabriel opened his mouth, choked, and continued without his own consent.

"Why _not_? I mean come on, Sambo, you're taller and hotter than Mount Vesuvius and your hair is soft and you kicked my brother to the curb and you make this cute face when you're grumpy that I bet even Mike can't hate and even though you probably hate me for Mystery Spot and Changing Channels and hiding in Heaven like a dick for like the last four years I'm completely head over heels for you-"

With a large gulp of air, the archangel clapped his hands over his mouth, pulling his wrist out of Sam's grip without even trying. Sam just let his hand hang in the air. Then he frowned, licked his lips contemplatively, and bit the bottom one. Gabriel's stomach flopped, and he felt himself mumbling something obscene beneath his fingers; he tightened his muzzle-like grip on his jaw in response.

"Uh… Wow," Sam managed at last.

Gabriel looked up at him with wide eyes. Scratching the back of his head and looking down at the floor, the hunter let out a long breath. Everything went silent and still. Sam looked up again and glanced around like he expected someone to jump out and tell him he'd been punk'd. No one did.

"So… That happened," said Sam.

Gabriel nodded with a slight tilt to his head, and finally let his hands fall away from his mouth, because to be honest aside from something sexual there was probably no way he could embarrass himself more. Why even bother trying to stop?

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to forget this whole thing ever happened."

"I would if I could," Sam answered. "Trust me."

"Ow," Gabriel choked out before he could stop himself.

Sam looked properly chastened, and offered Gabriel a weak smile.

"Sorry."

"Well, I knew it was a long shot anyway," admitted the archangel with a broken little laugh. "It's just I-"

And then Lucifer was standing there with the edges of his mouth a bit pinched and his eyes sullen. They had known each other long enough, been close enough, that Gabriel knew immediately that Lucifer's expression was as close to an apology as he would get. Clearly his big brother had rethought the merits of the particular set of circumstances he'd tossed Gabriel into. It didn't mean his little 'punishment' was over, but at least Lucifer understood that the scenario had become painful and not just suitably embarrassing. Gabriel nodded gently.

Mouth pursed in concentration, Lucifer flicked his hand and everything changed.


	9. Shoulder Angel AU

**A/N: Don't own Supernatural, don't have any holy water.**

**Not sure how this one turned out, exactly… I tried, anyway.**

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**Chapter 9: Peanut Gallery on Your Shoulder**

Although he didn't like it, Gabriel expected the sickish feeling that came with being flung through time and space by his brother. Thankfully, his landing was much more comfortable than the last. A fall into some sort of fabric instead of a stupidly hard tile floor. Shaking his head hard to get rid of the vertigo, Gabriel sat up.

And then the ground beneath him shifted.

"Whoa!"

Gabriel clung to the fabric and was able to manage not falling. When everything settled, he looked up, and saw… Fluffy brown hair and an ear almost as tall as him. The archangel pulled a face. He was standing on… Sam Winchester's left shoulder? A laugh split the air.

Clinging to Sam's collar, he leaned over to get a look at his right shoulder. And there, sitting comfortably with one leg crossed and the other dangling down towards Sam's right pec, was Lucifer.

"You'll fall if you do that, Gabriel," the elder archangel warned cheerfully.

With a huff, Gabriel seated himself more steadily on Sam's shoulder.

"You mean like you?" he scoffed. "Shoulder angels, Luci? Seriously?"

"Yup. But you, little brother, still don't have your powers," the devil said with a self-satisfied grin, ignoring the verbal jab that would have been too insensitive for any human.

Gabriel's eyes narrowed. He clambered over the front of Sam's button-up, raring to tackle his brother. But just as he reached the opposite shoulder, Lucifer tapped him on the forehead. A second later Gabriel sat up, stomach and head full of nausea as he looked around and found himself back on Sam's left shoulder.

"Dick," he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest and digging his back into the meat of Sam's neck a bit.

"Can you guys not do that?" the man himself muttered tightly, as if he were trying not to move his mouth too much. "I'm trying to look like a sane person here."

It was only then that Gabriel noticed that they were moving through a crowd, of people who likely could not see him or his brother. College kids finally hitting their second wind of the day, looking more alert than Gabriel remembered any student at Belle Plains ever being before noon. They were outside, sun shining down and marking the time at something like two in the afternoon, which made sense given the state of the students. The buildings were familiar too, ones he had himself seen, though in the dark, many hours before.

Stanford.

Gabriel did a second once-over of Sam. Definitely much younger than the real Sam, the hunter. He was a simple (if someone so pretty and complex and emotionally beautiful could be simple at all) law student again.

"Aw, come on, bunk buddy," Lucifer teased. "You'll make me cry."

"Yeah, Sambo," Gabriel chimed in. "Don't tough love us. We got enough of that from Dad."

The brunette rolled his eyes and strode purposely towards a building. Pushing the door open nearly unseated Lucifer, much to Gabriel's unbridled glee. The youngest archangel grinned and cuddled up to Sam's neck, even though it made the human twitch at the odd sensation.

Sam was comfy. Gabriel nearly fell asleep to the soothing rock of Sam's giant footsteps, but was jolted awake when the brunette sat down heavily in an auditorium seat.

"Ooh… Standardized tests! Now that's what they should have in Hell…" Lucifer mused.

"A test?" Gabriel said, blinking a few times to wake himself up fully and glancing around before blowing a raspberry. "Ugh. Kill me."

"Already did, brother," quipped Lucifer.

Sam couldn't hide his snort. He tried instead to cover it up as if he had sneezed but the other students still gave him funny looks. Gabriel frowned and stuck his tongue out at them, grabbing a fistful of Sam's collar protectively.

"Guys, shut up, I've gotta focus," Sam breathed out, eyes squinted in concentration.

He accepted a Scantron and exam paper from the student next to him, then passed the remaining stack on. Lucifer took great delight in yelling out random letters as Sam tried to remember how to spell his full name on the bubble sheet.

"Awww, _Samuel_," Gabriel laughed. "It suits you."

Sam ignored him, but flushed pink and furrowed his brow as he moved on to writing down his ID number. Lucifer kept up his little game and screamed random numbers as loudly as his tiny lungs could manage. It worked, as he got Sam to accidentally write an eight instead of a one. Grumbling low in his throat, the law student erased the mark and put down the correct one. However, the shadow of the eight was still visible, tangible proof of Lucifer's petty victory.

For the most part after that, Sam was successfully able to ignore the hoopla from the little angels atop his shoulders. Gabriel was actually rather impressed, and almost believed Sam might make it through the entire exam without any more negative interference, until he stopped entirely on question thirty-three.

"Shit," Sam breathed, squeezing his eyes shut as if the answer might be on the backside of his eyelids.

It didn't appear to be there, based on the way the furrow wedged between his eyebrows stayed firmly in place. Lucifer leaned over, almost dangerously so, to get a look at the question. As the blond read, he mumbled the words out loud to himself. Gabriel rolled his eyes, but was glad to be able to hear the test question without risking his own beautiful mug.

"You know, bunk buddy, if you just let me into your noggin, I could find that answer right away," Lucifer offered at last. "I know you studied it."

Sam looked almost insulted.

"I am not gonna say yes to you for something so stupid!" he growled under his breath.

Lucifer gave a thoughtful frown and shrugged, as if to say it was worth a shot. He shifted to sit cross-legged and rested his chin on his hands and his elbows on his knees. The aura of boredom the devil exuded made Sam roll his eyes.

"I could pop on over to your neighbor's test and see what they put," suggested Gabriel helpfully.

He saw Sam's jaw tense, and the brunette turned his head just the slightest to glare down at Gabriel.

"I thought you were supposed to be my shoulder _angel_."

Gabriel shrugged.

"It's only a technicality," he explained idly, lying back so that he was sprawled across the length of Sam's broad shoulder. "After all, Luci's Satan and all, so of course he's the shoulder devil."

"I am not cheating," snapped Sam.

"Good for you," said one of the TAs helping proctor the exam. "But keep it to yourself. People need quiet for the test."

The brunette ducked his head down in embarrassment, cheeks flaming. Lucifer laughed, pleased. Gabriel himself actually felt a bit bad about the whole thing. He patted what of Sam's hair he could reach in a silly attempt to be soothing. Sam just sighed and returned to his test.

"The next one's C," called Lucifer lazily.

Sam frowned. Read the question. Bubbled in C. Then, grumpily, he rolled his shoulders in an attempt to knock Lucifer off. However, the archangel just flitted in and out of reality until he could get a firm foothold in Sam's shirt. Gabriel, powerless, wasn't so lucky. With an 'oof' worthy of a cartoon, he toppled into Sam's breast pocket.

"Sam? Sammy-boy? Gigantor?" the miniscule archangel called, scrabbling uselessly against the smooth fabric of Sam's dress shirt. "A little help?"

Sam filled in two more bubbles, then glanced around out of the corner of his eyes. Once he was satisfied everyone else's attention was occupied, Sam reached the index finger of his left hand into his pocket. Gabriel grabbed the end of the digit in a bear hug and held on for dear life as Sam pulled him out.

However, instead of being set back on Sam's shoulder, Gabriel felt the soles of his white tennis shoes connect with the wood of the auditorium flip-up desk. Curious, he tilted his head and studied the exam Sam was working on.

"Huh. Halfway there, Sambo!" he called.

Sam just smirked a little and nudged Gabriel aside by pressing the eraser of his pencil to the tiny angel's belly. Then he filled in the B bubble that Gabriel had been standing on. The archangel pouted, looping his arms over his chest protectively.

"You could've just asked," he pointed out.

Lucifer, on the high ground of Sam's right shoulder, grinned like he should be in trouble for something.

"This is much more fun," Lucifer answered as Sam continued to fill in bubbles. "Sammy agrees with me; we're two of a kind, after all. You're just too amusing to mess with, little brother."

Gabriel's expression went flat, and he stuck up both middle fingers at his brother.

Thankfully for Sam, he was able to finish the rest of the exam without another shoulder-angel incited incident. And with time to spare, too, Gabriel noted with vicarious pride. Most of the other students were still working when Sam placed Gabriel back on his shoulder, handed in his test, and left.

It was in between class periods, which left campus mostly deserted, and the archangels took full advantage.

"So, how did you think you did?" Lucifer asked clinically, though clearly mocking Sam.

"Shut up, Lucifer."

The devil pressed a hand to his chest, and turned his scandalized look on his little brother.

"Sammy said shut up to me…"

"Thank Dad," retorted Gabriel. "Someone had to."

That sent a little kick of humor into the set of Sam's lips, which Gabriel counted as a victory.

"I'd watch my mouth if I were you, little brother. Only one of us has his powers right now," Lucifer warned, his blue eyes steely but his mouth downturned into a childish pout.

Gabriel waved him away lazily.

"This is why Sammy-boy likes me better," he said. "You're too intense, Luci."

"He does not like you better!"

Gabriel's lips pulled up and out into a tricksterish grin.

"Does so."

"Does not!"

"Does so. Don't you, Sambo?"

"You're both dicks," Sam supplied, rolling his eyes. "But… Gabriel's a little more tolerable than you, Lucifer."

The golden-eyed archangel cheered.

"I'm _much_ better than Gabriel," Lucifer protested. "I'm older than him, and stronger. Plus I can do _this_!"

Lucifer stuck out his tongue, cleaved down the middle almost halfway in, and the two tips wriggled oddly. Sam closed his eyes, shook his head, sighed.

"I don't see what that has to do with—"

"No, no," Gabriel interrupted, patting Sam's neck. "He's got a point."

Sam let out a long-suffering sigh that unwillingly turned into a breathy laugh halfway through. Still chuckling softly, Sam shook his head and looked up at the blue of the sky. Gabriel followed his gaze, but only after a long, dumbfounded moment admiring the swish of Sam's hair from so close.

"It's a nice day," Sam said at last, as though he couldn't believe it.

Gabriel had to admit, Lucifer had conjured a truly beautiful fall day. Just crisp enough for a jacket, unless you were from the Midwest – in which case a light t-shirt might be more appropriate. The slant of light hit the sandstone of the campus buildings just right. Sam paused in front of a fountain.

All three watched the graceful arc of the water, spurting up to the sky and diving back down.

"You could jump in," Gabriel suggested.

Sam rolled his eyes, but the soft smile on his face didn't drop away.

"Or you could toss Gabriel in," offered Lucifer. "You and I were made for each other, Sammy. We don't need him."

"Hey!" protested Gabriel. "Besides, then he'd only have a shoulder devil, and that would suck. Right Sambo?"

"I'm not taking sides," Sam insisted, trailing his long fingers through the rush of fountain water.

"Psssh, you just don't want to tell Mr. You-Were-Made-For-Me over there that you and I have _chemistry_."

"You're a douche, Gabriel," said Sam.

But there was an undeniable fondness to the expletive that Sam didn't even bother to fight.

Gabriel, emotionally sated in a way he couldn't explain in words, just smiled. It had been so long since he'd just joked around with any of his closest brothers. And to bond over teasing Sam Winchester of all things… Well, there had been a reason Lucifer was the one to teach him everything he knew. Or, most of it. Gabriel grinned. He did, after all, always have a few of his own more pagan tricks up his sleeves.

"Love you, Sambo," he mumbled.

Amazingly, the brunette did not tense. Gabriel knew even with his eyes closed, because he didn't feel the shift of muscle from beneath him. Sam held his tension in his jaw, in his neck and shoulders; if he went rigid, Gabriel would have been able to feel. But he didn't.

Then there was a laugh. Not Sam's.

Lucifer's.

"I think you're getting a bit too comfortable, Gabriel," he said.

The archangel had just enough time to open his eyes and stare blearily up at his brother before Lucifer flicked his wrist, and Gabriel felt himself go flying.


	10. Genderbent AU

**A/N: Trust me, if Supernatural belonged to me there would be a lot more long-running female characters and a lot more gay. I just write the fanfiction.**

**Oh man, lady!Dean and lady!Gabe are even more like oil and water than regular Dean and Gabe… They kind of got the best of me, so Luci had to interfere.**

* * *

**Chapter 10: A Little Appointment with T &amp; A**

"Hurk—"

The motion sickness was even worse the third time. Gabriel wondered how many more 'paces' Lucifer thought he had.

"Isn't it bad enough you killed me?" he demanded, then frowned.

That… Was not his voice. Gabriel lifted a hand to his throat. … Was it? A simple look down was all the answer it took. Gabriel threw up his hands and pressed his lips together.

Only, really, he wasn't a 'he' anymore, per se…

Gabriel rolled her eyes, shrugged, and cupped her breasts experimentally. They weren't huge or anything (though Gabriel knew the kind of chests he'd encountered while dabbling in Casa Erotica weren't exactly… Realistic…) but they at least suited the body (vessel?). No, the real problem was, Gabriel thought looking up to eye level, the height.

Or lack thereof.

Now, Gabriel's usual form was on the short end of the stick, 5'8". He was no supermodel either, not like Sam or, admittedly, Dean. But Gabriel had a very strong attachment to his vessel's appearance. It was, after all, the dedicated work of centuries. And if some of the other pagan gods had called him goofy-looking, well that was their problem. It wasn't like it had ever prevented him from getting ass, even if it was illusionary.

But this?

This was downright insulting.

"Oh, come _on_!"

Gabriel, who was only just getting over the shock of so many transitions to realize she was in a women's restroom, glared at the reflection in the mirror, though it was not wholly unpleasant. She had a well-sculpted, if a bit large, nose, big amber eyes, and a mischievous set to her mouth; all things that felt at least a little familiar. And the compact curviness wasn't bad either. The thing was, she barely cleared the 5' mark.

If Gabriel had been insecure about his height as a man, this was a million times worse.

But, she still had no powers. So it was just a matter of going out and facing the embarrassing bullshit dear Luci had set up. And, well… Gabriel was a little curious. Was this a just-Gabriel thing, or was Sam a girl too?

Mmmm, girl Sam…

The thought hadn't ever occurred to Gabriel before, since despite his long hair and penchant for feelings that Dean deemed feminine for no real reason, Sam was a very, very masculine specimen. A work of art, really. But a Sammy-girl could be just as delicious of a prospect as Sammy-boy himself...

And to be honest, it was that thought that propelled Gabriel out of the restroom and into the hallway of… Actually, Gabriel had no idea where the heck she was. It didn't look like a school, thank Dad. And it wasn't the Winchester bunker either. The lighting was dim, the floor a little grimy…

And then Gabriel picked up on a chorus of drunken shouts.

A bar?

She glanced back. A bar with really nice bathrooms.

"Oh, what the hey," she muttered, and strode down the hall towards the noise.

Surprisingly, she fell into the slight swagger-swing of walking with so many curves easily. Not that Gabriel hadn't had a little bit of genderswapped fun as Loki, but… Without powers, she felt a lot more locked into the body.

A true lover of flair, she swung around the corner and stepped into, shock and awe, a bar. Nice place, a little dingy. It had an atmosphere about it, though. A dart board and a pinball machine were nestled in the corner, and mismatched stools surrounded the square bar. Everyone went silent, and Gabriel pursed her lips uncomfortably.

The overuse of leather and army surplus was practically screaming 'bar full of hunters'. And with her powers still on the fritz, Gabriel didn't exactly like her chances if they realized she was anything less than what she appeared to be.

Whatever she appeared to be.

Two ladies by the bar were studying her especially closely, eyes narrowed. The shorter one nudged the taller one. And when the taller girl nodded and met Gabriel's eyes, a shot of fire leapt down the archangel's throat. She'd recognize those hazel hues anywhere.

Sam.

Gabriel blinked at the Winchesters for a few long moments. They were definitely curvier, but still pretty built. Not that he had expected anything less. The brunette huntress patted Dean (Deanna? Sure, that worked.) on the shoulder, set her half-finished bottle of beer on the bar with a clank, and walked up to Gabriel slowly. At that, the other patrons of the bar went back to whatever hunterly things they had been doing before. Sam came to a stop half a foot from Gabriel. The archangel noted with a twinge of relief that Sam was a bit shorter too. Not much, she topped out around 5'11", it looked like. Which actually expanded the already significant height difference between them as men by like three inches, and made it very, very hard not to stare at Sam's boobs, since they were at eye level and all. But really it could have been worse.

Somehow.

The archangel managed, forcefully, to drag her eyes up from modest, plaid-covered cleavage.

"Heya, Sam," Gabriel greeted quietly, dazzled by the way the hair fell around Sam's face, so familiar but somehow different with the softened curve of her jaw.

"The trickster," the brunette observed, eyes narrowed dangerously. "We killed you. What are you doing here?"

"Uh… Surprise?"

Sam's lips pressed together, and she tilted her head a bit to the side with a sharp jerk, closing her eyes. She took a deep breath through her nose, two. Then she slung an arm around the back of Gabriel's shoulders, gripping the angel's bicep tightly. With a tense smile, Sam steered Gabriel over to the bar and forced her to sit between herself and Deanna.

"Hey Deano," Gabriel greeted, snatching Sam's beer from the bartop and taking a swig before either of the sisters could do anything about it.

"Why are you here?" Deanna hissed, her green eyes narrowed sharply.

Gabriel grinned, irises flashing gold.

"I missed Sammy-girl's company."

Sam twitched, grabbed her drink from Gabriel. Deanna was about to say something else when a blond guy sidled up to them with a beer in hand.

"One for your friend?" he offered, smirking.

"Thanks, Joe, but—" Sam began to protest.

"Thanks, sweetheart!" Gabriel cut her off, accepting the drink from Joe.

He shot her a wink, and Gabriel waggled her eyebrows in return. Joe wandered off, and Gabriel nudged Deanna with an elbow.

"He's a looker," she prompted playfully.

Deanna rolled her eyes. Sam's jaw clenched.

"Shut. Up."

"Ooh, testy. Do you like him too, then, Sambina? I'm not a big fan of love triangles—"

It was Deanna that grabbed Gabriel's collar, dragging her close to better threaten her.

"You shut the hell up," she growled.

"Uh, rude," Gabriel retorted calmly.

"Bite me, you over-sugared bitch."

"Maybe later, sweetheart. Right now I've got my eye on that hot sister of yours."

Gabriel wasn't sure if she felt her back hit the floor or the sting of a fist to the cheek first. Either way, when she sat up on her elbows to get Deanna and Sam back into view, her eyes had darkened nearly to brown. Gabriel was an archangel. Gabriel did not take shit like that sitting down, not even without her powers.

"Don't ever, _ever_ talk about Sammy like that," ordered Deanna.

Blood was buzzing so loudly in Gabriel's ears that she didn't even realize the bar had gone silent until a smash of glass shattered the silence. Joe, looking worried and flustered, started picking up glass without looking away from the brewing fight. Gabriel stood, rolling her shoulders and feeling the rush of her wings, even if no one could see them.

"I did _not_ wanna have to do this," she said, with an angry smile, eyes flashing. "But you forced my hand. Again."

"We killed you last time, you crazy bitch, and we'll do it again," said Deanna, arms open wide in a 'come at me' gesture.

Gabriel snorted, raised an eyebrow, and pointed at Deanna with her index fingers and thumbs.

"You didn't kill jack shit, _princess_."

"Second time's the charm," Deanna snarled, flipping a wisp of hair out of her eyes.

"Deanna, w—"

"Shut up, Sammy! Just hand me a friggin' barstool! I'm gonna stake this bitch!"

Gabriel threw back her head and laughed, hard and loud.

"Oh, come on, Deano, what makes you think it'll work this time?"

Gabriel glanced out of the corners of her eyes and saw the other hunters in the bar ringing around them, barring them in. Sam, Deanna, and Gabriel. Two on one, ostensibly, although Sam at least looked conflicted about starting a monster fight in the middle of a friend's roadhouse.

"We'll just keep killing you til it sticks," the elder Winchester insisted, jutting out her chin.

"Sorry, Joe. We'll pay you and your dad back," Sam promised, picking up a barstool and snapping the bottom sections of two legs.

Gabriel scowled. This was not how she wanted meeting cute Sammy-girl to go. At all. In fact, it was pretty much the complete opposite of what she had wanted. But she still owed Deanna for that punch, at the very least. And tricksters and archangels always got even.

With a rush of speed, the Winchester sisters leapt at her, and Gabriel dove out of the way. She had forgotten, again, that Lucifer was playing keepsies with her powers.

Damn.

Deanna tried to swipe her from the side, and Gabriel took the opportunity to knee her right in the gut. However, she wasn't used to having to actually work at fast-paced fighting, as opposed to teleporting. A flaw, she admitted to herself. One she probably ought to work on someday.

For the time being, she quickly found herself backed up against the bar with two stakes pointed at her heart and her hands raised in at least partially mocking surrender.

"Can't we all just get along?" Gabriel asked mildly, flipping a strand of golden-brown hair over her shoulder.

"Nice try."

"Don't I get a last request?" she asked.

The Winchester sisters shot each other a look.

"Uh, no," Sam said firmly.

"Come on, Sambina, what if I end up saving your life someday?"

"Fat chance," the brunette replied.

Then, suddenly, the Winchesters were shoved apart. Gabriel stared at the rugged, sharp-jawed blonde in front of her, and let out a teasing wolf-whistle.

"Luci?"

Lucifer rolled her eyes, which were tastefully accentuated by mascara-laced lashes, tugging Gabriel away from the bar by her wrist.

"A bar fight, Gabriel? Really? You're hopeless."

"You're the one who popped me in right after our first meeting. What did you expect?" demanded Gabriel huffily. "Maybe if she didn't recognize me—"

"What good," Lucifer asked pointedly, "would that do anyone? If you wish to court my True Vessel outside these exercises, you'll have to get used to taking responsibility for your actions."

"We-he-ell!" Gabriel scoffed. "You, lecturing me on responsibility? I really have fallen far!"

Lucifer's eyes flashed, a cold, powerful look that spoke 'God's second-born' and Gabriel knew she had made a mistake.

"This is punishment for sneaking around behind my back, Gabriel. These trials aren't meant to be _fun_. But if you're serious about a romantic relationship with Sam Winchester, you had better make sure you're ready to commit to this. I won't let you run away from your decision."

Something lurched in Gabriel's chest, and she nodded.

"Fine, Luci. I'm taking this seriously, alright?"

Lucifer scoffed, but released Gabriel's arm. She spun the both of them around, to face the frozen humans in the bar.

"Good. Now try… Again."

Everyone looked shocked that Gabriel had somehow made it outside their mob-like circle.

"Alright, fine, I surrender," said Gabriel. "You wanna know what I'm doing here? What my big plan is?"

"No," answered Deanna abruptly, but Sam held a hand out to stop her.

"Tell us," the brunette insisted, her mouth pursed.

"Truth is," Gabriel looked at the ground, then back up "I couldn't stop thinking about you, Sammy-girl. Promise I'm not up to anything nefarious. Let me buy you a drink."

"Now, see, we just don't believe you," said Deanna. "Plus we don't do casual drinks with _monsters_."

Gabriel set her jaw harshly.

"Thanks, but I wasn't asking you," the archangel pointed out. "Why don't you let little sis answer for herself, Deano?"

Sam actually looked a little amused at that, the corners of her pink lips twitching.

"The answer's still no," she said. "Deanna's right. A monster's a monster."

But, Gabriel noted with a tinge of pride, Sam did not move to raise her makeshift stake again.

"Oh, you'll see. You two will warm up to me eventually, Nancy Drew," she answered, feeling a lot more chipper.

The Winchester sisters both looked unconvinced of that. Gabriel pressed her lips together to keep from grinning. Whether in this world or the real one, she knew there was no separating their destinies. The Winchesters were important to Heaven, and Gabriel was an archangel, after all.

With a spring in her step, Gabriel made her way closer to Sam, smoothly grabbing the wrist the taller woman held the stake in and raising it. She had to ease up on tiptoes to even get close to face-level with Sam, but it was worth it. And Deanna, for some reason, didn't interfere.

"What are you—?"

However, much to Gabriel's chagrin, she was still too short. Mouth twisting halfway to a pout, she used her free hand to tug on the collar of Sam's button-up, forcing the taller woman to duck down. With a satisfied noise, Gabriel touched her lips to Sam's.

It was odd, but in a good way. Nothing like kissing guy Sam. Instead of firm, chapped lips, this Sam had a softer mouth with fuller lips. No lip gloss, which was a bit of a disappointment but also so incredibly Sammy that Gabriel found a little balloon of happiness swelling in her chest.

Still, there was no interference from Deanna, Joe, or any of the roadhouse's other patrons. The archangel took this as a blessing to continue the kiss.

And then with a sharp tug on the back of her collar, Gabriel was pulled out of the chaste lip-to-lip contact.

"That's enough."

A pleased laugh burst from Gabriel's still-tingling lips. Lucifer sounded jealous.

With a toss that could only result from her elder sibling's supernatural strength, Gabriel was sent tumbling through time and space again.


	11. Baby Angel AU

**A/N: Supernatural and its characters don't belong to me, they never have and they never will. Unfortunately.**

**I know I said this was a five-chapter arc, but I guess I lied. Now it's a six-chapter arc. But that's fine, right? In the scheme of things that's a pretty small change in a story that'll max out at 101 chapters.**

**This chapter takes us out of Gabe's PoV for a bit, since I'm no good at writing from a child's perspective. And I thought it might be refreshing to see what everyone else has to think about the situation.**

* * *

**Chapter 11: Little Angels Are Our Future**

When he – finally a he again – caught his balance, Gabriel knew immediately that something was wrong, but couldn't quite put his finger on what. The figurative phrase brought his attention to his hand itself. He clenched it with a frown. Tiny fingers and a pudgy palm. Something was wrong about that, but… What?

And then someone big was leaning down and picking him up. The face was unfamiliar; a human with blond hair and blue eyes and a little bit of stubble. But the wicked gleam behind his eyes was anything but alien. Gabriel's face split in a wide grin.

"Luci!"

He squirmed in his big brother's hold, wanting to be released so he could fly into his brother's chest for a proper hug. Lucifer just chuckled fondly, with an odd twist to his mouth like he was about to play a trick.

There was a flutter of wings, and Lucifer looked up and right.

"Lucifer."

Oh.

That was Michael. And he sounded grumpy.

"Hey, Michael," greeted Lucifer, clearly pleased with himself.

"What have you done to Gabriel?"

The blond just smiled and shrugged. Gabriel struggled and twisted in his big brother's grip, until he had turned himself to face Michael. He too was wearing an odd face, a human visage with dark hair. Though his brothers looked weird, Gabriel found that the humans they had chosen to mimic suited them very well.

"Mike-a!" the littlest archangel greeted, drawing Michael's stern gaze away from Lucifer and towards him with an odd jolt.

"Hello, Gabriel…"

Michael shifted uncomfortably, clearly restraining himself from doing… Something. From behind Gabriel, Lucifer looked up at Michael from under his lashes and grinned a little.

"You wanna cuddle him, Michael?" he teased.

Michael shot him a look burning with blue and white fire, but Lucifer just laughed.

"Change him back," the eldest archangel ordered. "It's undignified."

Lucifer scoffed, pitching Gabriel at Michael to free his arms for posturing. Frantically, Michael encircled Gabriel, pulling the small child out of the air and safely into his broad chest.

"If any of us is meant for the undignified, it's Gabriel," said Lucifer, tossing out an arm casually.

"Archangels were not meant for this… Human childhood," Michael protested, even as he shifted his posture to accommodate Gabriel, to encircle and protect him.

"Oh, come on. I just wanna see how my bunk buddy will react."

"Lucifer, no."

Michael was clearly done arguing. Lucifer pulled a teasing little half-frown that clearly said he wasn't done. Gabriel's mouth was twisted down in determination as he pushed his stubby little fingers together, lacking the motor control to snap even though he appeared to know the action would get him whatever he wanted. Lucifer waved his hand and Gabriel's mouth split into a grin as a chocolate bar filled his chubby fist. He munched on it happily, while just above his little head, Michael's eyes narrowed to slits.

"So, Gabe," Lucifer began, and found wide butterscotch eyes on him. "Would you like to play a game with me?"

Gabriel nodded without hesitation.

"_Lucifer_."

"Oh, don't be such a spoilsport, Michael," the devil said with a grin befitting his title. "You think he's adorable, even though you don't want to. Come on, I'll let you watch."

Michael's face shifted through several vaguely-irate expressions. Lucifer waited patiently. The eldest archangel held Gabriel out and studied him. Big golden eyes, a fluffy halo of unruly hair, fingers and toes so small they made something in Michael's chest tighten with the need to _protect_—

"Fine," he relented.

Lucifer cheered. Gabriel just looked innocently confused. It would be a first, Michael admitted to himself.

"But!"

Lucifer groaned.

"No fun."

"But," Michael repeated, voice lower. "You cannot take him to the real Sam and Dean Winchester."

"What? Come on, Michael—"

"He is… A handful, but he's still our brother, Lucifer."

"What if I wipe their memories afterward?" the blond offered.

Michael looked conflicted. He avoided Lucifer's eager gaze for a long moment.

"Fine. But do it properly. So they won't remember. Ever."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

Lucifer waved his hand like he was brushing away Michael's concerns, and with a flit of powerful archangel wings the Men of Letters Bunker materialized around them. Michael set Gabriel down on the ground, and the little archangel's chubby cheeks were covered in chocolate. For the first time, the two elder archangels noticed Gabriel's wings, which had manifested in physical form due to the toddler's lack of control over his residual power. The gold feathers drooped to the floor haphazardly; Gabriel's wings, while small indeed to accommodate his childish form, were much too big for him. Lucifer smiled, nudged his big brother.

"Cute, isn't he?"

Michael's expression trembled, and he furrowed his brow.

"It… Reminds me of when our Father was around."

A shudder ripped up Lucifer's spine, but he managed a smile that was only slightly painful.

"I bet Dad would get a kick out of this," the blond said.

The two of them vanished, before Gabriel could latch onto them.

With the disappearance of his brothers, Gabriel's lower lip trembled. A whimper dribbled out of his mouth, followed quickly by an ear-shattering shriek. Distantly, there was a loud crash, a thud, and a muffled "son of a bitch!"

Despite Dean's rather vocal response to the disturbance, it was Castiel who reached the wailing archangel first. He stood there for a few seconds with a confused frown.

"Gabriel?" he asked.

The archangel looked up at Castiel and quieted a little, recognizing something warm and familiar about the other angel's grace, but nothing else. When Castiel crouched down to pick him up, Gabriel screamed again.

"Luci!" he cried, fat little tears streaking down his cheeks. "Mike-a!"

Dean practically tripped into the room, clutching his aching head.

"Jesus, Cas, what the hell—"

Castiel blinked.

"It's Gabriel," he told Dean, as if that explained everything.

Dean looked down at the screaming toddler and grimaced. Oh yeah, he was gonna have flashbacks to taking care of that little shifter baby for sure. The two of them were just standing there helplessly when Sam ran in.

"Dude, what the hell is going on out… Here?"

He blinked, looking down at the tiny Gabriel on the bunker floor. He opened his mouth to say something, but as he did, Gabriel's teary little butterscotch eyes locked on him.

The crying stopped.

But far from being terrified into silence by Sam's ridiculous stature, Gabriel looked mesmerized. As if Sam was the most interesting, beautiful thing he had ever seen. Like he was made of stardust and diamonds. Like he was something pure. The brunette shifted under the stare. No one had ever looked at him like that. Especially a kid.

"Sam!"

And with a little flutter of his too-large gold wings, the tiny archangel slammed into Sam's chest. Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around the kid to prevent him from falling. Dean grinned as if he were about to make a comment, and Sam's eyes narrowed.

"What do we do with him?" he asked Castiel, turning away from his brother. "How did he even get here? I thought he was dead."

The angel's brow furrowed.

"I'm not sure what we are meant to do with him," he admitted gruffly, tilting his head. "But Gabriel has been with Michael and Lucifer in Heaven, working to restore and restructure it. He faked his death when fighting Lucifer in 2009. However, the other archangels are the only beings who could put him in this state."

Dean rolled his eyes.

"Heavyweight douchenozzles, round two. Even if they were fucking with him, why'd they dump him on _us_?" he demanded.

"Dean!" Sam hissed, covering Gabriel's little ears by pressing one to his chest and cupping one of his large hands around the other.

"What?" the elder Winchester protested testily. "He's an archangel, not a real kid!"

Frustration and embarrassment warred on Sam's face, before his expression settled into a protective scowl. Something leapt in his chest when Gabriel nuzzled into his shirt, and he shifted his hold on the tiny angel, making sure to steer clear of his gold wings, for fear of ruffling the feathers.

"Jerk," muttered Sam, trying to ignore the way his heart stuttered when one of Gabriel's little hands closed around the plaid of his shirt.

It was just that Gabriel was so _small_. And helpless. And even though Dean was the only one who'd truly ever had a shot at an apple pie life, Sam had seen that kind of future for himself, once. With Jess. The white picket fence, the two kids, hell even the minivans and stupid animated movies. He'd wanted all of that once, even though after ten years of hell and heartbreak he knew it wasn't in the cards for someone like him.

"Bitch," Dean answered thickly, eyes cornering away from the utterly tender look his brother was bestowing on the miniaturized archangel in his arms.

None of them had any idea what they're supposed to do, so they just stood there. And then Gabriel pulled back from Sam just enough to look him in the eye and tugged on the bit of the brunette's shirt still clutched between his little fingers.

"Sam?"

Sam choked something painful down and tried to smile.

"Yeah, Gabriel?"

The archangel looked down, brow furrowed in intense concentration. Then he met Sam's eyes again, earnestly.

"Hungry," he insisted.

And no one argued with the little tyke, even though there were still streaks of dried chocolate on his mouth, because there were tear tracks and snot too. Sam walked into the bunker's kitchen with Gabriel in tow and Dean wondered how his overly-cleanly kid brother was not freaking out over the archangel snot smeared onto the front of one of his favorite shirts.

Castiel just came along for the ride, curious but unconcerned.

"What do little kids eat?" Sam muttered, rifling through the cupboards with one hand while his other arm encircled Gabriel, large fingers hooking under the angel's knees to keep him sitting upright.

Dean shrugged.

"Applesauce?" he suggested.

Sam threw him a flat look.

"We don't have applesauce, Dean."

"Hey, you were the one asking for suggestions!"

Sam sighed loudly. Meanwhile, Gabriel had tangled his pudgy fingers into the hunter's longish hair.

"Candy," he suggested with a sly little grin.

"You are not getting candy," protested Sam.

"Saaaaaaaaaaaam," Gabriel whined, tugging almost-painfully on the locks of Sam's hair he had managed to capture. "Candy!"

"Jesus," Dean muttered. "Just get the brat some candy. He can handle it, he's an archangel."

Gabriel stuck his tongue out at Dean and cuddled closer to Sam. Dean threw up his hands in frustration. Castiel tilted his head.

"Cas?" Sam asked.

"I don't believe any harm would come to him if you chose to feed him candy, no," Castiel answered without any further need for elaboration on Sam's part.

And so, even though it went against his better judgment, Sam dug into the candy stash Charlie had left in their kitchen, and pulled out a little package of M&amp;Ms. Gabriel's eyes lit up, and he released Sam's hair in favor of grabbing eagerly for the chocolate.

However, once he had it in hand, he didn't quite have the dexterity to open it. Gabriel looked down at the bag of M&amp;Ms, then at Sam's one free hand. Finally, his eyes settled on Castiel. With determined insistence, he held out the packet. Tilting his head, Castiel accepted the M&amp;Ms. Then he just stood there, holding them. Gabriel frowned.

"Open!" he ordered, wings flaring a bit.

Castiel ripped an edge off the bag of candies, then handed them back to Gabriel. Watching with eager golden eyes, Gabriel poured a few M&amp;Ms into his palm.

"What do you say?" prompted Sam.

Gabriel thought about that for a moment, looking up at the kitchen's white ceiling. Deciding he needed a little brain food, the toddler popped a green M&amp;M into his mouth and chewed slowly.

"Thank you," he remembered, looking a little too proud of himself.

Castiel found himself smiling just a little.

"You're welcome, Gabriel."

Gabriel's little wings fluttered a bit at that, and he held out an M&amp;M to Castiel. It was blue. Castiel accepted the gift from his formerly-elder brother, and placed it on his tongue to eat, even though it was difficult to enjoy the taste of the chocolate itself with each individual molecule vying for his attention. Gabriel seemed to have no problem with that. In fact, the cherubic archangel had stuffed another three of the candies into his mouth in the time it took Castiel to eat his one.

Then, he held out a red M&amp;M in front of Sam's nose. The brunette went to take the little chocolate with his free hand, but as he did, Gabriel tugged his chubby little palm away, closing his fingers over the candy.

"No," he insisted firmly.

Sam lowered his hand, confused.

"Isn't that one for me?" he questioned.

"Yes."

Gabriel brought his little hand up to Sam's mouth insistently. It took a few seconds, but the hunter finally realized that, for whatever reason, Gabriel wanted him to accept the candy directly from his hand. For the very first time, though if Michael and Lucifer left Gabriel with them for much longer he was sure it wouldn't be the last, Sam wished he'd had more experience dealing with children.

As dexterously as he could, Sam grabbed the M&amp;M with his lips and pushed it back into his mouth. Gabriel grinned like he had accomplished something amazing and flapped his wings excitedly with a tiny whoosh-whoosh. Whether it was the burst of chocolate on his tongue or the clear glee of his new little charge, Sam felt a little surge of happiness skip through his veins.

And then Dean scoffed and the illusion was broken.

"You look like a stay-at-home dad, Sammy."

The barest hint of a smirk flashed across Sam's face before he stifled it.

"And you look like you're jealous that Cas and I got M&amp;Ms and you didn't."

Dean made a face that anyone but him would have labeled a pout.

"Can get my own damn M&amp;Ms," the green-eyed hunter grumbled.

He actually proceeded to do so once Gabriel passed around another set of M&amp;Ms and didn't offer him one. Not that he even had a particular fondness for M&amp;Ms, really, but it was the principle of the thing. No kid was gonna get the better of Dean Winchester.

Then a green M&amp;M plonked him on the head. Dean's eyes narrowed.

Gabriel waved at him, grinning like an idiot. Pushing up his sleeves, Dean stalked up to the tiny archangel in his brother's arms, prepared to rip his fluffy wings off, but ran chest-first into Castiel.

"What the hell, Cas?"

"He is only a child, Dean. We must be patient with him."

"Patient!" parroted Gabriel, sticking a chubby little thumb in his mouth.

"Wh- But he just-!" Dean spluttered, gesticulating wildly as if that would help make his point.

Sam pulled a guilty little smirk that reminded Dean of Lucifer, and exactly whose fault the entire fiasco he found himself in was. In fact, Dean was about to shout for the older two archangels to get their feathery asses within punching distance when Gabriel interrupted with a shout.

"Sam! Play now!"

"Play?" Sam questioned, rolling the idea over in his head. "Alright. What do you want to play?"

Dean folded his hands and prayed silently, and Castiel just looked at him, not understanding the request or why anyone would be so averse to water fowl.

"Duck, Duck, Goose!" answered Gabriel, and Dean's half-pleading expression crumbled into flat disappointment.

"No. No way. I'm not playing that," the elder Winchester insisted, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You have to," Sam told him. "You can't play Duck, Duck, Goose with just three people, Dean."

"Nope! No way! Not gonna—"

But Dean's protests lurched to a stop when a tiny wail hit his ears. Dean whipped his head around, and saw Gabriel's lips trembling and his big golden eyes filling with tears. There was a long moment of silence, and Dean could almost physically feel the buildup for an earth-shaking scream. He held out for as long as he could, but eventually the fear for his eardrums was too much.

"Fine!" he relented. "I'll play!"

Gabriel clapped his hands together happily, and Dean had the distinct feeling he had been played.

Soon, the two hunters and two angels were seated in a small circle in the bunker foyer. Sam and Dean had tag-teamed an explanation of the game for Castiel, and Gabriel had declared that he was the "chooser" first. No one bothered to argue about it, even Dean.

"Duck, duck, duck, duck…" Gabriel repeated, stretching up on his toes to tap the grown men on the head.

Even then, Sam still had to slouch when it was his turn to be 'ducked'. Since there were so few of them Gabriel went around the circle three or four times before making his decision. With an especially loud thwap, he bopped Castiel on the head.

"Goose!"

Castiel sprung up, and Gabriel ran as fast as his little legs would carry him, letting out high-pitched, breathless squeals of excitement and fear. He had almost made it to Castiel's empty spot in the circle, and Sam was cheering him on, when suddenly the archangel found himself airborne.

In truth, Castiel had snagged him with both hands around the middle, and raised him up into the air. Giggling, Gabriel kicked his feet and fluttered his wings.

"Cassie! Cassie!"

Dean cracked a smile at that, leaning back on his hands and studying Castiel's eyes which were swirling with a mix of confused fondness.

"I have never had a younger brother before," the angel admitted.

"Well, you're doing a pretty awesome job," Dean replied.

Gently, Gabriel patted Castiel's hands.

"Leggo now. Sam."

All three of the grown men hid smiles. Why Gabriel was so insistent that Sam was his favorite, none of them could really say. But there was something about the childish favoritism that felt nostalgic. Castiel set the tiny archangel down. He stumbled across the floor, almost tripping when one of his wings drooped too low and drug on the tile, but eventually hopped safely into Sam's lap.

"Hi Sam."

"Hi Gabriel."

Castiel sat back down in the makeshift circle silently. Dean let the quiet stretch out, content to not have to play Duck, Duck Goose. Everything was peaceful for three minutes.

And then there was the fluttering of wings.

"Mike-a! Luci!" Gabriel cried, unable to hold back his excitement.

The tyke was halfway out of Sam's lap before he remembered that it had been his brothers who had left him alone in the first place. A surly pout formed on his face and Gabriel tipped up his nose. He settled back onto Sam's lap.

"Gabriel, come here," Michael ordered.

"No!"

Lucifer laughed. Michael shot him a sparking glare.

"We have to go now," the dark-haired archangel insisted.

"No! Sam," said Gabriel, turning slightly to press his chubby cheek into Sam's chest.

"You heard the kid," said Dean, deciding it was more fun to razz Gabriel's douche brothers than the bitty Messenger of God himself.

Michael clenched his hands into fists, half-tempted to come to blows with his True Vessel. Lucifer, meanwhile, was suddenly looking very put out. His ice-cold gaze zeroed in on the way Gabriel clutched at Sam's plaid shirt. Even as a toddler Gabriel seemed to notice, and stuck out his little tongue.

"Mine," he said playfully.

Lucifer's eyes narrowed to slits. It only took him two long strides to cross the makeshift circle and snatch Gabriel away. Something primal in Sam's gut twisted. He was on his feet before he realized what he was doing.

There was a loud crunch, and everything stopped.

Dean and Michael broke off their glaring contest, Castiel stopped mid-stride on his way to stand in front of Dean like a barrier, Gabriel's cry cut off harshly. Sam, fist still raised, stared down at his hand. It was dripping blood.

Lucifer, brow furrowed, lifted the hand of the arm not holding Gabriel to his nose. When he held the hand out, palm up, to get a look at it, his fingers were slick with blood.

"You punched me," the devil realized slowly.

Sam looked from his brother to Castiel, unsure whether to apologize or not. The broken nose was already healing, and Lucifer quite honestly deserved a punch in the face after everything he'd put Sam through…

But that hadn't been why he'd hit him, and that was what made Sam uncomfortable.

Lucifer rubbed the blood between his fingers, then looked back up into Sam's eyes. The hunter had the queasy feeling that Lucifer could see everything about him.

"Be thorough," Michael ordered softly. "It might be best to wipe Gabriel's memory too. You had your fun."

Lucifer sneered, tempted to remind his brother that he had seemed to find it fun too. But after being physically attacked by his True Vessel, he didn't quite have the capability for smart remarks.

Then the blond archangel waved his hand, and everything changed.


	12. High School AU

**A/N: If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, Jimmy, Supernatural does not belong to me!**

**The next few chapters might be a little slow getting out. First of all, I'm working on finishing up the final chapter, and working my way back as well as forwards. So, by the time I get close to the end, I'll have things all written and ready for you guys. And secondly, it's almost November. I'll try not to let my NaNoWriMo writing mess with my publishing schedule too much, though.**

**One more chapter of Luci's meddling after this, and then poor Gabe can go on his merry way again.**

**I find myself a little unimpressed with this chapter, but once Gabriel started making headway with Sam, Lucifer got grumpy. So…**

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**Chapter 12: Human Teenagers are Made of Gross**

Gabriel woke up with his face smooshed against a hideously orange steel locker; number 69 by the numbers next to his head. He giggled a little, dizzily. His head was pounding.

His first coherent thought was, this is a high school. He didn't have a second thought because he was too busy trying to process the unexplainable pit of dread oozing into his belly. He had never had a fear of high schools before…

And then Gabriel realized that something else didn't feel right.

Looking down at himself then checking his reflection in a nearby glass display case proved his fears true. Lucifer had shoved him into the body of an awkward, mid-pubescent high school boy. Though he still looked somewhat like himself and the eyes of his reflection were definitely his own, the lines of his face hadn't set in. There was an embarrassing smattering of stubble on his chin that was too short to even shave, he looked like a scrawny stick in the loose t-shirt he was wearing, and worst of all his hair was a floofy untamed mess. Gabriel cringed. Unlike humans, he had never had to wade his way through the slough of teen years, because his vessel had been at a lovely, optimal, fully-grown phase when Gabriel first possessed him.

Gabriel decided that brothers were cruel inventions and should be done without.

And then an arm was slung over his shoulder. Gabriel arched his back up and away from the touch like a cat, but the other person was determined and hung on.

"Hello, Gabriel."

The blond with the personal space issues had to be Lucifer, Gabriel surmised, looking over at him. Slightly-ruffled hair, clear skin, and wearing a shirt that actually seemed to fit his lean-not-scrawny high-school frame. He looked a little too perfect, as per usual, which only served to cheese Gabriel off even more.

"What's up, Luci?" the amber-eyed archangel asked with a fake smile.

"Just thought you ought to know the town gossip before I set you loose to make a fool of yourself," Lucifer answered, tugging his brother closer.

Gabriel wondered if he had been going for a noogie and then reconsidered it since Gabriel's hair was already a bird's nest.

"What's the news, then?"

"Precious little Sam Winchester, that's what," said Lucifer matter-of-factly. "Everyone's talking about him. He's new in town, you know. Weird family. Moves around a lot. His asshole brother with the GED picks him up in a clunky black Impala every day after school. Good grades, but kind of a freak. Almost got in a fight the other day, actually."

Gabriel's jaw tensed.

"A fight? With who?"

Lucifer's eyes flashed mischievously.

"Easy there, tiger," he teased. "Our Sammy can take care of himself."

"Shut up. And he's not your Sammy; no one's sharing him with you."

"He is my One True Vessel. Made just for me," Lucifer sing-songed, pulling Gabriel away from the glass display case and into the high school's worryingly large foyer which was filled with little cliques of teenagers. "So… I'd say I have more of a claim than you do, brother. But I'm willing to let you try, just to see you fall flat on your face."

Gabriel's golden eyes narrowed to slits, and he tugged out of Lucifer's grasp. The words weren't exactly original, smack-talk between brothers, but there was a chill in his brother's voice that prickled the base of Gabriel's neck.

"Who pissed in your cheerios this morning, Luci?"

Inexplicably, Lucifer lifted the back of his left hand to his nose, as if to catch a drop of blood. Gabriel gave him an odd look, and Lucifer snapped his hand back to his side.

"Anyway. I'll be around, Gabriel."

He vanished into thin air, as if to flaunt that he still had the use of his angelic powers. The dick. But Gabriel was quickly distracted when the doors to the school opened and a hush went over the crowd in the foyer. And though he was half the age the real Sam was, Gabriel would know Sam Winchester anywhere.

He wasn't quite as tall as adult Sam, just cresting the six foot mark, and he was hunched a bit at the attention of the other students. His hands were shoved in his pockets. Without even thinking about it, Gabriel gravitated towards him as all the other kids backed away. By the time Sam had taken five strides into the foyer, there was a six-foot bubble around him and Gabriel was the only other person inside it.

A little shiver of nervousness shot up the archangel's spine. He didn't like the attention of a crowd. Not when he was vulnerable. Not when he was himself.

"Hi, Sam."

The brunette looked down at him as if they'd never met before. Maybe they hadn't. Who knew, with Lucifer in charge of the scenario?

"Hi," he answered at last.

A low buzz filled the foyer, and Gabriel's ears started to tinge red. He itched at one, trying to be casual about it, but Sam fixed him with a piercing look. The archangel flashed an awkward smile and scurried away into the crowd. Thankfully, he managed to shimmy between most of the gangly teenagers with ease.

Not-so-thankfully, he slammed face-first into someone's chest.

"Owww…"

"Lucifer told me to give you this."

Still dazed, Gabriel jolted his head back to look up. He met blazing blue eyes. Michael. Without another word, Michael shoved a schedule paper into Gabriel's hands and vanished. Instinctively trying to slick back his hair a little, Gabriel grumbled about the laziness of his blond brother and studied his schedule. Latin, American Lit, Chemistry, Trigonometry? The archangel stuck out his tongue.

"Ew. Who would take a schedule like this?"

Sam Winchester, as it turned out.

When Gabriel arrived in Latin, a second before the bell rang, he found that the only seat open was in the very back row, next to Sam. He tried to smile and imagined smiting his brothers. Sam asked to borrow a pencil, and Gabriel handed him one. Other than that and Sam's proficiency in Latin (unsurprising), the class was relatively uneventful. Gabriel was able to zone out and still answer correctly whenever he was called on; one of the perks of being around when the language was actually spoken.

When the bell rang, everyone else rushed out like crazed zoo animals making a bid for freedom. Gabriel watched Sam pack his bag carefully, then start as he realized there was a gaze on him.

"Oh, right. Your pencil," the brunette said.

He handed it back while Gabriel was still wondering what pencil he was talking about, and their fingers brushed. For a split-second, all Gabriel's focus was on Sam's face, every soft, unfamiliar detail, and the hazel eyes that looked millennia less haunted than the ones he had come to admire. A spark of something electric and a little sickening buzzed up Gabriel's arm, and he leapt away and dashed out into the hallway.

It turned out Sam's packing up slowly was more strategic than anything. The swarm of bodies that overtook Gabriel as he made his escape, most taller than him, was a tidal wave of awful. Generously applied cologne and perfume, mixed liberally with some of the worst BO the archangel had ever had the misfortune of encountering. He would never complain about college students again as long as he lived. Gabriel was sure even Hell wasn't so crowded and sweaty.

He caught sight of two freshmen swapping spit as he was churned down the hallway and his stomach turned. Not that kissing itself was gross, it was actually a rather inspired pastime that he usually congratulated humans on inventing. And not that he thought they ought not to be doing it, though the hallway of a public high school was both a less than romantic and less than sanitary location, but…

They were fourteen. And he was used to inhabiting a body that was thirty-plus. There was just no way to find any of these kids – these babies – attractive. And yet, somehow, he lamented, Sam's gaze still made his heart pound, even when he was too young for Gabriel as he saw himself to consider hot.

Well, it was Sam, after all.

But the realization made Gabriel a bit uncomfortable. Sure he was in love with the guy but… How all-encompassing was that love supposed to be, anyway? He was an archangel, with consciousness so broad that it would defy human imagination, and yet all he could think about was Sam freakin' Winchester.

After extracting himself from the thinning river of teenagers, Gabriel took his time getting to literature class, figuring having Sam in his class was a one-time deal. But, again, the class was full and lo and behold, in the back was Sam. Sam who had somehow acquired a pen to write with between classes. Gabriel's palms began to sweat uncomfortably, and he decided teenage bodies were disgusting; suddenly all of the whining about high school in human literature and cinema made sense. Unfortunately, this understanding did not alleviate him of the physical awkwardness due to having to sit next to Sam. Sam who took dutiful notes, though Gabriel noticed him also writing in an illegibly tiny font in the margins of his notebook. Gabriel's amber eyes glossed over the teacher, who was espousing the value of Twain, and his curiosity won out.

"What are you writing?" he whispered, nudging Sam in the arm with the eraser of his mechanical pencil.

Sam glanced over at him, startled. The colorful flecks in his eyes flashed, and he moved to cover the margins of his notebook with a hand. Gabriel quirked an eyebrow at the motion. Sam's cheeks colored pink.

"Nothing," Sam all but mouthed in response.

Gabriel pulled a face at him. The corner of Sam's lips twitched a little, almost into a smile. To the archangel's disappointment, he was ultimately able to hold it back. Though he tried a few more times to convince Sam to talk to him, the brunette stayed focused on note-taking and effectively ignored Gabriel for the rest of the class.

After literature there was lunch break. Thank Dad, Gabriel thought to himself, because archangels were not made for school. At all.

They also were not made for school cafeteria food, he realized after having to dump his tray of greasy rectangle pizza (which alone was enough to warrant some sort of smiting, honestly); all he kept was his carton of chocolate milk and the butterscotch bar that one of the girls in the lunch line with him had insisted to her friend was 'the only good dessert' the school served.

After stuffing his face with the bar and chugging the milk, Gabriel found he agreed. But without any friends to talk to, lunch was boring. Everyone seemed to be going about as usual.

Until Gabriel heard shouting.

He hurried over to the exterior lunch tables, and then past them onto the green of the school's back lawn, close to the football practice field. And there was Sam, lip raised in a snarl, while another guy held up a very familiar red spiral notebook. Gabriel's eyes narrowed and darkened. But before he could make a move, Sam had thrown a punch that sent the other guy into the dirt.

With a care he hadn't shown for the dude who'd stolen from him, Sam picked up his notebook and clutched it to his chest like a lifeline. When he turned and saw Gabriel gaping at him, he paled.

"Don't tell anyone—"

Gabriel frowned and held up a hand.

"I won't, but… What the hell, Sambo?"

Sam made an awkward motion, somewhere between rolling his shoulders and shrugging. Gabriel pursed his lips and stalked up to the taller boy, grabbing his arm before dragging him onto the empty practice field. Once they were suitably far away from prying eyes and ears, Gabriel placed his hands on his hips and stared Sam down.

"It's just… Stuff. I write, ok?" the brunette admitted, turning his head away.

Gabriel tilted his head.

"Write what?"

Sam shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Gabriel waited.

"Just… Stories."

"About…?" the archangel prompted.

"Monsters."

Silence settled into the air around them like a blanket, and made everything feel stifling and thick. Gabriel scratched his neck

"Cool," he replied.

Sam blinked. Shifted. Ducked his head and then looked back up, meeting Gabriel's eyes with an earnest glance.

"You don't… Think that's weird?"

"Nah. I've heard of weirder stuff," Gabriel told him. "Trust me. You think monster stories are bizarre? You should have seen some of the angsty poetry my big brother wrote after Dad kicked him out."

Gabriel knew Lucifer would hear the jibe, wherever he was, and allowed himself a smug grin. Even better, Sam actually chuckled. Maybe being a teenager wasn't so bad. Ok, yes it was, but Sam could make anything worth it just by existing.

"We… We should probably go back," Sam suggested, looking back at the doors to the cafeteria.

Gabriel glanced with him and saw the guy Sam had punched getting dizzily to his feet and starting towards the doors.

"And walk right back into that mess? Look, either that dick is gonna go tell the teachers what happened, or he's gonna stuff it to try and save his pride. I dunno which. But honestly, I've got Chemistry next and after eating just a butterscotch bar I'm not ready for public education," the archangel rambled.

"Oh, I've got Chemistry next too," Sam said.

"Skip with me?" suggested Gabriel.

The brunette looked a little torn, but after glancing down at the notebook in his hands, he nodded. The two of them sat down in the grass, which was still a bit dewy. Gabriel could feel the seat of his pants getting wet and shifted a little, pulling a face.

"Hey, uh… I'm sure you must have told me at some point but… What's your name?"

Gabriel almost smacked himself in the face. Idiot. He had never introduced himself.

"It's uh… It's Gabriel," he answered.

Sam smiled.

"Like the archangel?"

"Exactly like the archangel."

"Huh. Cool."

Gabriel noticed all at once that Sam was leaning back a bit, with his palms flat on the ground. His butterscotch eyes flicked up to the brunette's face, to make sure he was looking forward, then back down to his broad hand. Gabriel leaned back a bit.

Carefully… Carefully…

And then his hand landed squarely on top of Sam's.

"Oops," Gabriel muttered, studying the grass.

Sam leaned to the side, nudging him arm-to-arm. At his prompting, Gabriel looked up. Sam seemed amused.

"Are you flirting with me?"

The archangel opened his mouth with no idea what would come out.

"Is it working?"

Sam smirked.

"I dunno."

Gabriel grinned back, falling into his stride.

"Should I try again until you figure it out?"

Sam's expression turned unimpressed, but there was still a softness about his eyes that spoke of amusement. He was just about to say something when Gabriel was hauled to his feet by the back of his collar. He flailed a bit, but the hold on him was strong.

"This is it. Last test, Gabriel," said a familiar voice.

He was only able to twist around and face Lucifer right before he found himself dropping through the air.

Lucifer waved goodbye with a douchey smirk.

Gabriel would have flipped him off, but a wave of motion sickness rolled over him and he curled into a ball, closing his eyes.


	13. In-Show Supernatural Convention AU

**A/N: Supernatural belongs to some people, who I can guarantee with DNA testing are likely not me.**

**Ok, guys, this may not end up being my absolute favorite chapter, but it has been the AU I've been most excited about. I made a few changes to the composition of the fandom as shown in The Real Ghostbusters, but only because it makes sense. After all, there's supposedly all these Sam girls and Dean girls, so why are they nowhere to be found at the convention? **

**Also holy crap I guess this is the new longest chapter... Becky got away from me. Enjoy?**

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**Chapter 13: The Devil's in the Fangirls (Starring Becky Rosen)**

"Good morning to you, good morning to you, our day is beginning so good morning to you!"

Gabriel groaned.

He was face-planted into fuzzy hotel carpet, and he couldn't quite remember why.

"What the hell am I doing here?" he slurred, managing after two or three attempts to pick himself up off the floor and into an upright position.

"Oh, come on, little brother, you're the one who wanted to come to this convention so badly!"

Convention?

Oh.

OH.

Convention. Right. The Supernatural convention. Gabriel tried to rub the pattern of the carpet fibers out of his cheek with a prickly, half-numb hand. He'd gotten way into the little cult series and begged his brothers to come with him to the convention. No one but Luce had agreed to go, though, which was probably the reason the blond felt entitled to being an annoying asshole.

He wasn't wrong, though. As Gabriel shielded his eyes from the light streaming into the window, he managed to make out the hotel room's alarm clock, which read 10:45. The convention proper would be starting soon. They'd gotten in sometime after midnight, which, Gabriel supposed, was the reason he apparently hadn't made it to the bed before collapsing. Staying up late was easy normally, but after a stupidly long car ride, sometimes it was impossible.

"Whew. Ok," Gabriel muttered to psyche himself up, hopping to his feet.

He indulged in a quick shower before donning his costume; well, really, more of a uniform. A janitor's uniform, in fact. He tugged at it a little, scrutinizing himself in the mirror. So far so good. And then, he snagged a bag of fun-size candy bars off the nightstand. It was always good to have a prop, after all, and when you offered people candy they were more likely to focus on the food than the accuracy of your costume.

"All ready?"

"Yeah. You coming?"

Luce scoffed, looking at him like he was an idiot. Gabriel stuck his tongue out at his brother, who proceeded to ignore him and flop onto one of the hotel beds, grabbing the TV remote. Well, if he wanted to come all this way just to hide out in the hotel, that wasn't Gabriel's problem. He took a deep breath, ran a hand through his hair, and strode confidently out the door.

The first thing he saw when he hit the lobby was a sea of leather and plaid. Of course. Gabriel rolled his eyes a little but smiled, and popped a fun-size Snickers into his mouth. It was only once he stepped down into the hubbub that he realized most of the Sams and Deans were actually women. Which in turn meant that though Gabriel was quite short himself, he was actually at least a tiny bit taller than most of the other con-goers.

"Oh. My. God."

Gabriel wasn't quite sure the comment was directed at him until a woman with streaky blonde hair rushed up and clasped his free hand in hers.

"Uh… Hey there?"

"Hi!" she greeted cheerfully. "I'm Becky Rosen, the con organizer."

Oh.

Wow.

"Wow," Gabriel repeated aloud. "That's… Wow. You're the head of that one fan website, right?"

At the mention of her site, Becky's eyes sparkled.

"Yes!" she took a deep breath, gathering her thoughts, then bounced on. "Anyway, I just came over to say that your costume looks great! You did a spot-on Trickster, I could tell right away!"

The tips of Gabriel's ears went hot and prickly. He grinned.

"Thanks, Becky."

She patted his hand.

"There's going to be a costume contest in a couple hours, you know. You should enter!" Becky encouraged, before something probably important caught her attention and he dashed off.

She was certainly a whirlwind. Gabriel wondered if there was any truth to the rumors that she was dating the author of the Supernatural books, Carver Edlund. It would certainly be an… Interesting dynamic, anyway. Gabriel was still thinking that as he began walking over to the sign-ups for the costume contest.

And he smacked straight into someone's chest.

Someone's very solid chest. Gabriel practically bounced off the guy, and thought for a second that he was going to find himself on the floor. But at the last minute, two large hands cradled his back, each one cupped just over a shoulder blade. Dizzily, Gabriel looked up into kaleidoscopic hazel eyes.

"Sorry," the other guy muttered, pulling Gabriel upright and then taking his hands off his back.

"Uh."

The guy was absolutely massive. At least a couple inches over six feet, but Gabriel wasn't good at judging height. His soft brown hair curled around his ears and fell so that it just brushed his broad shoulders. With the plaid button-up and canvas jacket, there really was no mistaking who he was dressed as.

"No… Problem," Gabriel said at last, shaking himself out of his gawking stare.

"Um, yeah. I, uh…"

It was the tall guy's turn to look a little flustered, and he cast his large arms to one side as if looking for something to do with them. The action was surprisingly cute for someone of his stature. Then his gaze locked on something and his brow furrowed. Gabriel followed the look, and saw that his bag of candy bars had spilled all over the floor. They were individually wrapped, so no harm done, but…

"Oh, you dropped your—"

Both Gabriel and the brunette dropped down to their knees to put the candy back in the bag. Their fingers brushed a few times, and Gabriel was sure his heart was about to stop. Finally, thankfully, the chocolate was all back where it belonged. The tall guy, already crouched on his haunches, offered Gabriel a hand. With probably a little too much thought for such a short amount of time, he accepted and was tugged to his feet.

"I… I'm Sam, by the way," the brunette said.

"I can see that," teased Gabriel.

Sam opened his mouth, closed it, tried to hide a smile, and then laughed a little when he couldn't. It was then that both men noticed they were still holding hands. They pulled away simultaneously as if they'd been scalded.

"Yeah, well. It's my real name too," Sam said to alleviate the tension hanging in the air, carding a hand through his long brown hair and clearing his throat.

Gabriel frowned contemplatively.

"What're the odds of that?"

Sam gave him a slightly skeptical expression in return, crossing his big arms over his chest.

"It's not like Sam is that odd of a name…" he pointed out.

"You've got a point," Gabriel agreed. "The name's Gabriel."

"Nice to meet you, Gabriel. Interesting costume choice, by the way. I wouldn't have thought of the Trickster."

Gabriel felt a smug grin lifting the corners of his mouth. He shrugged.

"Well, everyone and their brother dresses up as Sam and Dean, pun intended. No offense though."

Sam just laughed in response.

"No, it's true."

"You look the most like how I imagined him though," admitted Gabriel.

Sam ducked his head, hiding a twitchy smile. He looked pleased.

"Well, same to you. About the Trickster I mean. Good thing I don't have a brother, or I'd have to watch out for him, huh?"

"Nah. You can trust me, Sambo!"

He wasn't sure where he got the courage to do it, but Gabriel nudged Sam with his shoulder a little, grinning. Then he walked on to where the costume contest sign-ups were. He kept his amber eyes trained in front of him, but eventually there was a set of large footfalls behind him, and Gabriel did a little fist-pump close to his chest so no one could see.

At the sign-up booth, he signed his name with a flourish. When he turned back, Sam was watching him with a soft smirk.

"Come on, you should sign up too!" the pretend Trickster prodded.

"I don't know…"

"What've you got to lose?"

Sam thought about it for a moment.

"My dignity?" he suggested, picking up the pen.

Gabriel scoffed and mimed waving the thought away as if it were a smell that personally offended him. Sam signed up as well, then turned his attention back to Gabriel.

"What do you think so far?" the brunette asked.

"Of the con?"

Sam nodded. His eyes were more earnest than Gabriel was expecting, and a cold tingle hit his neck.

"Honestly, I haven't seen much," Gabriel admitted, running his fingers through his sandy, slicked-back hair.

"Oh, you've _got_ to see some of the crap they've got for sale!" said Sam.

And before he could come up with any sort of impressive, witty answer, Gabriel found himself tugged along through the lobby to a large room full of booths. The biggest one was selling signed copies of the Supernatural books themselves. A few others scattered nearby had knickknacks; coffee mugs, magnets, that sort of thing. And then there was the art.

At least ten booths scattered with prints of various characters, immediately discernable by their clothing, or other distinctive features. Gabriel ran the pads of his fingers gently across a laminated picture featuring an angel.

"Angels?" he asked quietly.

"Oh, that's right!" Sam piped up. "You weren't at last year's convention. Well, Mr. Edlund mentioned they were going to start publishing again, and that angels would be involved. There was a, uh… A bit of an info leak, turns out there's gonna be some angel named Castiel showing up. Everyone's been guessing what he'll look like."

"Huh…" Gabriel mused, and rubbed his temple.

It felt like something was pressing against the back of his eyes, straining to get out. He hissed a little in pain and Sam put a large hand on his shoulder, face scrunched cutely in worry. The sweet, empathetic look the brunette was making dissolved the pain almost immediately, and Gabriel smiled a bit.

"Of course, Becky's read the drafts," Sam mentioned under his breath. "So I trust her interpretation best. She says he wears a trench coat."

Gabriel looked at Sam like he'd totally lost his marbles.

"An angel? In a trench coat?"

Sam shrugged.

"That's what she said."

"So," Gabriel mused, "you and Becky know each other pretty well, then?"

Sam rubbed his arm uncomfortably.

"Yeah, well…" he muttered.

The two of them were silent for a long moment. Gabriel wondered if Sam wore plaid regularly, and considered suggesting the idea to him if not. Or at least button-ups. With the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. Mmmm.

Sam cleared his throat.

"I, uh… I actually also heard we're gonna learn something new about the Trickster," the brunette offered.

Gabriel perked up.

"Really?"

Sam laughed.

"You seem excited."

"Well, he's… He's my favorite," Gabriel defended. "I mean, he's like the only monster to survive Sam and Dean. Pretty badass, right, Sammy?"

"I guess that's true," the taller man conceded, nudging back when Gabriel jostled him playfully.

Their eyes met for one sparking moment, and Gabriel felt a chill zigzag through his fingers and up his arms. He instinctively licked his lips before he'd even realized they were dry.

"So what do you like about Sam?" he asked, tearing his amber eyes away, and locking them on a little plush Dean in a tiny leather jacket hanging from one of the booths.

Thankfully none of the people trying to sell their wares decided to push their way into the moment. Actually, most of them made interested or smug faces before turning their attention to other potential customers.

"Just identify with him best, I guess," said Sam. "You know, he… He gets a lot of crap thrown at him, but he keeps trying to do the right thing. That's the kinda person I want to be."

Gabriel could hear the almost tender smile in Sam's voice, and felt the edges of his own mouth tilting upwards in return. He nodded, and stuffed his hands in the pockets of the janitor uniform.

"Yeah. Sam's my favorite of the brothers."

He managed what he hoped was a tricksterish wink, and then it was Sam who was smiling and glancing away. Then a high-pitched squeal broke the half-comfortable silence.

"Oh, you two look so cute together!"

Gabriel blinked hard, and suddenly Becky had a hand each of his and Sam's.

"Uh… What?" Sam asked skeptically.

"I never even considered it," the convention organizer babbled, eyes lighting up. "But with the Trickster being—ooh, spoilers! Anyway, just trust me, they'd be so cute together! Although there is Mystery Spot to get over and… Well, all the better, angst really gets the shippers going…"

Gabriel glanced up at Sam, to see if the taller man looked as dizzy as him. He did, the faux-trickster noticed with a shred of relief.

"Becky, uh… Can you slow down…?" Sam said, patting her hand.

Becky took a deep breath and smiled up at Sam dreamily. Gabriel felt something clench around his heart and shifted a little to try and loosen it. Not that that worked.

"Anything for you," she agreed amiably. "It's just that, well, seeing you two look at each other like that made me realize how cute of a ship the Trickster and Sam would be!"

Sam smiled a little, but it kept flickering back to a slightly-confused frown.

"Ship?"

"Pairing," answered Becky with a flutter of her hands. "Couple. Whatever. Since Dean and Castiel are going to get popular, and there's no way I'm going to ship Samifer, even if the smut fics would be absolutely delicious—"

Sam and Gabriel glanced at each other. Gabriel had an inkling he didn't want to know what a smut fic was. The term Samifer also put him on edge for some reason he couldn't place. Becky let out a huff of air, and put her hands on her hips.

And then Carry On, Wayward Son by Kansas started blasting from her back pocket.

Becky fumbled for her phone with a gasp.

"The costume contest! It's on in five minutes!"

"Hey, we're signed up for that," said Sam thoughtfully.

He only barely got the words out of his mouth before Becky had grabbed them by the wrists and was dragging them through the hotel. Gabriel was actually a little shocked that Becky was able to make any headway through the crowd, since unlike he and Sam she couldn't see over most of the con-goers. After almost body-slamming a Yellow-Eyed Demon and a Woman in White, Becky tugged them into a ballroom.

The line of contestants wasn't very long, fourteen people, including them. The costumes were eclectic, to be sure. There were two sets of Sam and Dean cosplayers near the front, which Gabriel noticed made Sam rub his neck sheepishly. Behind those four was a Meg, with full-on black contacts. Very badass. Next, a Bela and Jo were standing casually. They shook hands. For some reason, Gabriel found himself pleased that so many side characters were making appearances in the contest.

"They look really good," said Sam, leaning down to whisper in Gabriel's ear.

A shudder raced up and down his spine, and he hunched his shoulders a little, biting his bottom lip.

"Yeah, they do. But so do we," Gabriel replied, turning to grin up at Sam.

The brunette looked as if he were about to say something in return, but they were interrupted by a slew of German curses. The guy behind the Jo cosplayer was fumbling on the ground for a plastic hook. Ah, a Hook Man. Interesting. Once he'd snatched up the replica weapon, he turned to the group behind him and started scolding them. All three bared fake vampire fangs and flicked him off. The tattooed djinn standing directly in front of Gabriel rolled his eyes.

Then, the lights went out, all but a spotlight on the stage in front of them. People began to file into the ballroom, and take seats on the folding chairs provided. Gabriel gulped. And then he saw his brother slip in, managing somehow to get a seat front and center. The blond kicked one leg up on top of the other and leaned back, cradling his head with his interlaced hands. Gabriel wasn't sure if that made things better or worse. He clutched his bag of candy to his chest.

"Hey. We'll be fine," Sam reassured him softly.

One by one, the cosplayers strutted onto the stage, to thunderous applause. Most of them had background music. Gabriel hadn't even thought of that.

Thankfully, Becky was both undeniably clever and well-prepared.

The second Gabriel stepped onto the stage, Heat of the Moment started blaring over the speakers. He grinned, falling into character with the kind of ease he hadn't been sure until that moment that he'd had. Hips and shoulders loose, he swaggered across the stage into the lineup, pulling out a candy bar and unwrapping it to munch on. He tossed the rest flippantly off the stage so they scattered in front of the audience.

The cheer was deafening. Gabriel saw his brother reach down and grab a piece of candy before giving him an appraising look with blue eyes. Gabriel's grin spread wider.

Sam looked nervous as he climbed onto the stage to finish out the lineup, but it seemed to work in his favor, especially with the way he was still at least five inches taller than everyone else even with his shoulders slouched.

"Ok!" Becky announced. "Our judges are tallying the scores right now!"

The crowd roared. Gabriel blinked his amber eyes rapidly a few times, then glanced up at Sam. Somehow noticing the gaze, Sam looked back and offered a sheepish smile. Then a drumroll started up.

"Ok, the judges have decided! First up, the award for group costumes!"

The Sam and Dean pairs and the group of vampires straightened up. Everyone waited with bated breath. Gabriel wasn't sure why his eyes were drawn down to his brother, who was looking only half-interested. The second he noticed the golden stare on him, though, he gestured to the vampire group with a nudge of his thumb.

"Eli's group: the vampires!"

The Sam and Dean pairs groaned, disappointed, and the vampires sauntered up to take a bow. Then all three groups were escorted off the stage.

"And now," Becky announced, "the winner for single costumes! This was a tough one. The judges debated long and hard about it… And the winner is Ally, as Jo!"

The Jo cosplayer shot a victory fist into the air.

Everyone looked ready to leave the stage, but Becky wasn't quite done.

"However, the judges also felt that there was a distinct performative aspect that couldn't go unrewarded, and so we have a runner-up: Gabriel, as the Trickster!"

Gabriel's eyes widened. He just stood there, frozen, until Sam elbowed him gently in the arm. Then the faux Trickster pulled a grin and waved at the crowd. Alli, the Jo cosplayer, offered him a high five, which he accepted.

Everyone walked off the stage together, and Gabriel felt something electric buzzing under his skin.

"Nice job," Sam congratulated. "You really did pull off the Trickster vibe there."

Gabriel flushed.

"Thanks, Sammy."

He wasn't sure what made him do it, exactly. But without spending time thinking about it, Gabriel hopped up onto his toes and pressed a quick kiss to Sam's lips. Sam blinked. He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something. There was a pause.

"Gabriel, I—"

And then an arm looped around Gabriel's neck.

"How daring of you, little brother. Even when you have no idea who he is, you still gravitate towards him. I suppose that _does_ mean something…"

Gabriel was about to ask what the hell Luce was talking about. But then he blinked, and everything was different.

Well, physically it was all the same, though the world around them had frozen in place. But he was Gabriel, the archangel, not Gabriel the fanboy. And that changed lots of things.

"Luci, what the hell?" he demanded.

Lucifer released him and shrugged.

"It was my last shot. I had to pull out the big guns. But I didn't expect that crazy Rosen woman to think you two would be good together," he sighed. "That was my mistake. Humans like her are especially emotionally volatile."

"Wait," Gabriel said slowly. "This is the last test? I passed?"

Lucifer crossed his arms over his chest and let out a grumpy huff.

"Yes," he admitted grudgingly.

A grin spread over Gabriel's face.

"Sooooo… You approve?" he prodded.

"Don't push it, little brother. I could always kill you again."

"You don't mean that," Gabriel sing-songed.

The scene around them dissolved, leaving the brothers standing in the same secluded corner of Heaven Gabriel had been practicing in from the start. The youngest archangel rolled his shoulders, feeling his powers return with the same sort of uncomfortable prickly sensation as when a numbed limb was reawaken to sensation. It was totally worth it to have his mojo back though. He did a little dance, and Lucifer rolled his eyes.

"Well? Are you going to go ask him now, then?" the blond demanded, blue eyes narrowed.

Gabriel choked.

All the color drained from his face. He held up a single index finger and opened his mouth, but there was really no good explanation for why he wasn't thoroughly prepared to ask out Sam Winchester yet, after being "put through his paces" by Satan himself.

Except that it was Sam freaking Winchester.

Gabriel let his hand fall back to his side.

Lucifer looked thoroughly unimpressed.

"J-just a few more practice runs," muttered Gabriel, more to himself than his brother.

Lucifer rolled his eyes and vanished in a flap of wings. Gabriel let his expression fall into a frown.

He took a deep breath, and for the first time in what felt like forever, he snapped his fingers.


	14. Hunter Gabriel AU

**A/N: Sorry this took so long, guys! I've been feeling kinda ill, plus NaNoWriMo just started up. This might not be my best work, but I figured I have to keep trying to get stuff out.**

* * *

**Chapter 14: Monkey See, Monkey Do**

Gabriel walked through the buzz of the crime scene in his well-pressed black suit, hands behind his back. He made a practice of not studying any one thing too carefully, but instead projecting an air of superiority. His eyesight far exceeded that of any human's anyway, so it wasn't as if he ever would need to lean in or squint unless he felt like doing so.

He cocked his head to the side as the diner's bell jingled, and caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Right on time. Gabriel counted their steps. One. Two…

And on three, he spun in a graceful but understated arc to face them, to catch the startled looks in their eyes.

"Agents," he greeted, flipping out an FBI badge with his left hand and offering his right to shake.

"Agent," Dean replied gruffly with a barely-troubled brow, giving Gabriel's hand a firm shake.

Sam pulled a face, so quick it was almost imperceptible, and shook Gabriel's hand as well.

"Agent," he repeated.

Gabriel's lips quirked up. Sam's mouth had closed around the words uncomfortably, as if it had been said once too many times and he was no longer precisely sure it was a real word. The archangel swung an arm out a bit to gesture to the scene around them.

"As you can see, the local forensic team is still working on gathering evidence from the scene," he explained. "But from a precursory examination, they have suggested the victim's death was the work of a wild animal. Claw and bite marks on the neck and chest area. Heart missing. It's also a robbery, the cash register's empty."

Gabriel feigned looking forward at the scene, but from the edge of his vision he could see Sam and Dean giving each other a meaningful look. Oh Dad, were those muttonheads the cutest. Werewolf, they were surely thinking. But they had no idea the crazy case Gabriel's creative mind had in store for them. Not one single clue.

"Thank you for the update, Agent…" Sam said calmly, fishing for a name.

"Page," he replied. "You must be Agents Forester and Brady. My superior told me you'd be coming."

The boys shared another absolutely adorable and naïve brotherly mind-meld glance. Dean's posture relaxed first, if only slightly, and Sam followed his lead. Gabriel let a little smirk roll over his lips. He followed them around the scene, commenting on anything that seemed out of place.

"Witnesses?" Dean asked gruffly.

Gabriel shook his head.

"Nada."

"Security tapes?" Sam suggested, tilting his head to motion to the slightly-conspicuous camera in the corner of the diner.

Gabriel smirked. Running a hand through his golden-brown hair, he nodded.

"You'll have to see those for yourselves, I think," he said cryptically. "There'll be a copy of them back at the precinct."

The two hunters nodded, gave the diner a last once-over, and turned to go. Placing his hands behind his back, Gabriel sauntered after them. Of course, to be more inconspicuous, he needed a car. Either luckily or unluckily, the Winchesters had parked right next to him. Dean gave a little scoff at the beat-up blue Taurus, but Sam shot his brother a look that stopped him from commenting.

Gabriel just looked at them and shrugged before climbing into his car.

Of course, by the time the boys made it to the police station, the archangel was already there. There was no look of surprise on their faces, but it was likely because his car stood out so much in the small parking lot that there would have been no missing it.

"Officer Blake," Gabriel said, gesturing, "these are my associates, Agents Forester and Brady. They'd like to look at the security footage now."

Officer Blake adjusted her glasses, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear as she took in Sam and Dean. Gabriel couldn't really blame her. The boys cut a nice figure in suits, though wearing one made Gabriel himself a bit uncomfortable. He was used to more casual, background-character clothes. But, when situations called for it, an archangel never backed down from a challenge.

"Uh, right this way, gentlemen," Officer Blake managed at last, after Sam had given her a particularly soft, reassuring glance.

Gabriel tried to memorize the younger Winchester's expression as the four of them walked to a viewing room. But Sam, as usual, was like a mirage. Always moving. Never quite the same. It was only the sound of Officer Blake opening the door that shook him out of his, admittedly sappy, thoughts. Back on the case, then.

As the security footage started up, both of the Winchesters leaned in. Gabriel, who already knew what they would see, leaned against the wall with one arm and tilted his head. The video feed was grayscale, a little fuzzy. To be expected for a cheap place like that. The diner, or what could be seen of it, was empty for several minutes. Then a man entered the screen: the victim. He began readying the diner for opening, unlocking the cash register, checking the grill.

Then, for a split second, there was a loud commotion.

The camera went dark.

Sam frowned and motioned Officer Blake closer.

"Can we get that last few seconds again?" he questioned.

"Sure thing!" she answered, but it apparently was something easier said than done.

Officer Blake spent three minutes fumbling with the remote and trying to get the feed to slow down or pause in the right place before Dean eased it from her hands and took over. The bespectacled cop stammered through an apology, but the boys were quick to reassure her that it was fine. Nodding along, Gabriel shot Officer Blake what he hoped was a comforting smile.

Sam and Dean's gasps, though subtle, cut through the air. Gabriel pushed between them to get a good look. The video had been paused at a single frame. A woman's face was pressed close to the lens, and as she grimaced in frustration, a set of long, needle-like teeth peeked out from beneath her upper lip. In the background, fuzzy, the victim had reared back from a second figure who stood with arms up.

"Someone needs to see a dentist," Gabriel quipped, to cool the tension in the room.

Sam cleared his throat.

"Uh, officer, if you could give my… Associates and I, a uh, moment alone please?"

Officer Blake nodded and backed out of the room, eyes still locked on the television screen.

Once the door had clicked shut, the Winchesters turned to form a circle with Gabriel, though he noticed that they were more angled towards each other than him.

"A vamp?" Dean demanded, as if someone else would have an explanation for what they had all witnessed.

"Two," Gabriel corrected, just to see what they would do.

Sam immediately shook his head.

"No, the posture of the one in the background… That didn't look vampiric. Actually, it almost looked more like a werewolf. And… That would explain our vic's missing heart."

Dean pulled a face.

"What, we got some sorta whacked-up Twilight duo here? When have vampires and werewolves ever gotten on?" he demanded quietly.

"The real question," Gabriel interrupted, "is how are we gonna catch these yahoos? We've only got one victim so far, so it isn't like there's a pattern to go on. Unless they got turned recently. Maybe Jack and Sally here knew each other before they went monster movie?"

Feeling Sam's eyes on him was almost more than Gabriel could handle, for some reason. Even though he knew he was right, even though he knew the case inside and out because his brain had been the one to concoct it, there was a little squeamish part of his brain that worried Sam would think he was stupid.

"I'll look up the town's missing-person record," the brunette volunteered. "You two can take the vic. If this guess is right _and_ they singled him out, it could be they knew _him_ before they were turned too."

Dean and Gabriel glanced at each other, both clearly not very comfortable with that setup.

"Maybe we ought to introduce ourselves before we go Scooby-Doo?" the archangel said. "I'm Gabriel. Bobby sent me out on this one since I was closest."

"Dean. And this is my brother Sam."

"Ah, the famous Winchesters," Gabriel teased, sending Sam a slight wink. "Nobody told me you were pretty."

Dean grimaced, but Sam hid a half-laugh in his hand, pretending to clear his throat.

"_Anyway_," the older Winchester pressed.

It wasn't hard to see the conundrum. Being the protective big bro, Dean didn't want to leave Sam alone. He also, as a good hunter, didn't want to leave a strange hunter to work an important half of the case without supervision. But, leaving someone he didn't trust looking after dear Sammy probably wasn't in the cards either. The trickster in Gabriel brought a teasing little smirk to his lips.

Sam tilted his head and studied his brother's eyes for a moment.

"Or, uh… Gabriel could come with me?" he suggested.

Dean's frown persisted.

"Sounds good to me, Sambo!" Gabriel said cheerfully, just to tease the green-eyed man. "… But I'm sure we can all research in the same place."

With that compromise, the three of them ended up in one of the reading rooms at the town's public library. Much to Dean's apparent chagrin, Gabriel spent most of the time reading missing-person records over Sam's shoulder.

"That looks like her doesn't it?" he asked, jabbing a finger at Sam's laptop screen.

Sam's brow furrowed as he thought, then he nodded resolutely.

"Yeah, I think so. Jane Lott, disappeared three weeks ago. So we're looking for anyone she might have known…"

Meanwhile, Dean started checking for connections between their victim, Don Bluff, and Jane Lott. It took another couple hours, but the three of them finally pieced together an approximation of the facts. Jane Lott had been employed at Bluff's diner, until she missed one too many days at work and he fired her. The reason she had missed work was to look for her cousin, Jack Lott, who had disappeared into the woods a month and a half ago.

"So, Jack and Jane," Dean said. "But now that they've whacked the shitty boss, where would they go?"

"They've got money now," Sam pointed out. "Not much but…"

"Probably biding their time," Gabriel added with a shrug. "Until they can get out without being recognized. Maybe Jack had a place in the woods?"

Sam glanced at Dean, and Dean shrugged.

"Couldn't hurt to look."

Which was admittedly a bit easy, but Gabriel wasn't concerned with getting caught up in the details of the scenario. After all, the hunt itself wasn't the point. He glanced at Sam, trying not to go too doe-eyed, what with Dean in the immediate vicinity.

Gabriel and the Winchesters prepared everything they'd need, silver bullets and machetes, and set off into the woods, around the area the Lotts had supposedly disappeared. It wasn't long before they were set upon.

Teeth bared and snarling, Jane leapt at them from one side while Jack stalked out of the trees and tried to pen them in from the other. The hunters readied their weapons.

And then something dropped from above.

Sam was tackled, but didn't fall. He did, however, drop his machete as he tried to rip pale hands off his throat. Another vampire.

"Sam!"

But Jack took advantage of Dean's distraction and rushed him, knocking the hunter into the dirt. Jane lunged at Gabriel, the only one left standing, but he lopped her head off in one swing.

"Duck, Sam!" he ordered, and the brunette dropped, leaving the vampire on his back off-balance. Gabriel took her head off too.

By the time he'd turned back, Sam had already pulled Jack off Dean and shot him. The three of them looked around at each other, breathing hard, but not too much worse for wear.

"Thanks, Gabriel," Sam said, breaking the odd silence.

"No problemo, gigantor."

Gabriel could feel his vessel's heart pounding like a drum, almost painfully, and had to resist the urge to massage the area of his chest just over it. Even though it wasn't real per se… Seeing even an illusionary Sam in danger was something terrifying. Gabriel wasn't sure how he had ever managed to put him in danger of his own volition. But that had been years ago.

Dean gave a nod and the three of them headed out.

Gabriel found himself actually surprised when, as he opened the driver's side door to the Impala, Dean reached back for a handshake. He shook the hunter's callused hand a bit tentatively, but offered a pleased smile.

"We'll stick around another day," Dean said. "In case we missed any more."

Then he slid into the car, but Sam stayed for a moment longer.

"Really. Thanks, for having my back," the brunette said again.

The earnest look in his eyes was enough to send a pleasant chill down Gabriel's spine. He wetted his lips absently and nodded.

"Couldn't let that pretty face get hurt," the archangel joked.

Sam held out a hand. The thought of shaking it was both painful and sharp with longing. Gabriel stuffed his hands in his pockets and smiled as best he could. Sam furrowed his brow, eyes dimming a little, and dropped his arm.

He had just turned towards the passenger-side door when Gabriel cleared his throat.

With a gentle grip, Gabriel took Sam's right arm, the sleeve already helpfully rolled to expose the brunette's very nice forearms. With the ticklish press of ballpoint pen, Gabriel jotted down a number.

"You can reach me there. If you… Ever need anything. Alright, Sambo?"

Gabriel grinned a little, and pressed a kiss to Sam's wide palm before releasing him.

The look in his hazel eyes was indecipherable, but his lips lifted a little and Gabriel decided to be optimistic. Then, Sam got in the Impala and rode away with his brother. Gabriel watched the black car disappear over a hill. He shook his head, to clear it.

Then, with the slightest flourish, he snapped his fingers.


	15. Bartender AU (5x03)

**A/N: Still a bit high on Episode 200, so if this chapter seems weird, that's what I'm blaming it on. Takes place during the early part of Season 5, when Sammy is a bartender.**

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**Chapter 15: Fruity Booze and Fruity Dudes**

Gabriel, eyes closed, took in a deep breath.

Old shoes and alcoholism—_Wait, wrong script_.

But the scent of alcohol was definitely buzzing in the air. The archangel blinked his golden eyes open slowly, tilted his head, and took stock of the place.

A fairly nice bar, clean, large. TV high on the wall, dart board to one side. Gabriel was sitting in a chair at a table by himself, facing the direction of the bar, where Sam Winchester polished a whiskey tumbler. His hair was slicked back from his face, and he wore a wrinkled, plain-color button-up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. A slow smile spread over Gabriel's lips, and he leaned his chin on his fist.

"Cute."

"What's cute?"

Despite himself, Gabriel jerked forward, slamming his hand down onto the table with a loud enough crack that hazel eyes immediately locked on him. Taking a deep, unnecessary but infinitely calming breath, the archangel glanced to his right.

"So?" the young woman repeated, wiping down the empty table next to him. "What's cute?"

Gabriel downed the half-glass of water sitting in front of him and wet his lips.

"Your bartender," he answered roughly, taking a glance to see if Sam was still staring.

Thankfully, the big lug had gone back to cleaning glasses. The woman laughed.

"Well, you're not wrong. Dunno if Keith swings your way, though," she commented, slinging the towel over her shoulder.

"Trust me cupcake," Gabriel said, waggling his eyebrows, "everybody swings my way."

But, Gabriel thought, he did feel suddenly in need of a drink of the brain-inhibiting sort. He stood and swaggered up to the bar. No one else was up there when he reached it, and he slapped his palms down flat both to get Sam's attention and to press out the tension from his shoulders.

Sam turned towards him, and his big knuckles went white around the pint glass he was cleaning.

"_You_."

The hard set of Sam's jaw and the sharpness of his gaze, surprisingly, made Gabriel relax more than anything. He looked up at Sam through his lashes and shot him a tilted smile.

"Don't be like that, Sambo. I'm just here for a drink, that's all," he said with an innocent shrug. "No tricks. Scout's honor."

The brunette all but slammed the clean glass back into place. Then he nodded tersely.

"Fine. I'm not hunting anyway. What do you want?"

Gabriel frowned, then tapped a round fingertip into his lower lip, tilting his head to the side just so. Sam's expression was flat and impatient. He kept glancing out at the bar as if willing someone else to come up, but no one did.

"The fruitiest cocktail you've got on the menu," Gabriel chirped at last, plopping down on a barstool and looking all too pleased with himself.

Sam scoffed, lips twitching up before they were schooled back into a frown.

"Should have known. Trickster sweet tooth."

The archangel just grinned, tapping the bartop with his knuckles. Sam frowned.

"Can you… Not do that?" he asked, mixing something bright pink and something clear into a bell-shaped cocktail glass.

"I could," Gabriel relented. "But what would it get me?"

"_Not_ a stake through your chest?"

Gabriel laughed aloud, unconcerned with anyone else in the bar but Sam.

"And we all know how well that's worked for you," he teased, eyes crinkling at the corners.

"Third time's the charm?" Sam suggested through his teeth, setting the cocktail in front of Gabriel gently.

The archangel looked down at the glass, bedecked with both a straw and a tiny, whimsical yellow umbrella. He sniffed carefully, then drew the straw to his lips.

"Not poisoned is it?" he asked, then took a quick sip before Sam could even answer.

"Not unless you're allergic to strawberry liqueur," the brunette commented, leaning his elbow on the bartop and his head on his palm to meet Gabriel's eyes better.

The archangel glanced up and found himself unexpectedly dazzled, even after so many run-throughs, so many scenarios. But, he justified to himself, ducking his head back down and taking a quick pull of sugar-rich strawberry-flavored cocktail from the straw, each Sam felt different somehow.

"Hey," Sam muttered, shooting glances out at the crowd.

"Yeah, gigantor?"

"I've uh… I've been going by Keith around here, alright?" the brunette said.

"Undercover, huh?" the archangel asked him, holding up a finger gun and smirking.

"Something like that."

"Alrighty then, Keith it is. … Huh. Keith. You don't look like a Keith, you know," said Gabriel, poutily taking another sip of his drink. "What kind of nicknames for Keith even are there…? Keithy, maybe, but that's… Ugh."

Sam just looked at him like he was crazy. Gabriel huffed, pulling away from his drink and crossing his arms over his chest.

"What?" the archangel demanded, rolling his golden eyes. "You can't just slap a 'y' on the end of a name and call it a proper nickname, gigantor."

"Why are you so worried about a 'proper nickname' in the first place?" Sam questioned, refilling a couple of beers from various taps for the waitress who had been cleaning tables before to take back to some customers.

"It's how I show my love," said Gabriel decisively before taking a long drink so that Sam's sharp, probing glance couldn't compel him to say more.

It was then that a man in a suit bustled up and ordered some whiskey, giving Gabriel a look down his nose. The archangel met his superior stare flatly, let his eyes blaze hot and gold for a moment, a burning look he had mastered after watching Michael for millennia, and flipped the suit monkey the bird.

"Ass," the man spat, slapping a few bills on the counter.

"If you think mine is nice, you should see his," said Gabriel, lifting his cocktail glass and gesturing to Sam with it.

The guy in the suit gave Sam a look, disapproving, but as if to also ascertain if the bartender seemed to be as appallingly _homosexual_ as the short guy on the barstool. Not that that was even a thing, because Gabriel was bi just like good old Dad intended thank you very much.

After picking up on Sam's very easily-read annoyance at Gabriel, Suit Guy decided he was safe.

"It's a shame you have to put up with people _like that_," he said, voice carefully clear and punctuated.

Sam's head tilted just slightly, as if he thought he might have misheard.

"How do you mean?" the brunette asked, jaw steeling a bit as he picked up on the significant emphasis of the customer's words.

The man just lifted his brows and said nothing.

Sam's responding glance was flat and professional, and Gabriel noticed he handled the man's money as little as possible. After a return of change that strictly avoided any contact, Sam watched the huffy man stride off, his glass of whiskey in hand.

"The nerve," Gabriel grumped, sucking at his drink's straw noisily.

"You shouldn't have flipped him off," Sam scolded, though his fingers itched aimlessly as he looked for a glass to clean.

"He started it," the archangel muttered.

There was a long silence between the two of them, filled unsatisfactorily with the clatter and noise of the rest of the bar, which made a cold lump of shame roll down Gabriel's chest and into his stomach. He fidgeted, bit his lip, ended up finishing off his cocktail too quickly. Sam eased the empty glass from his grip and washed it out.

"What time do you get off?" Gabriel blurted.

Sam's face was skeptically questioning. He let his hands do their work without turning his piercing hazel eyes from Gabriel.

"I'm closing up tonight," was the too-calm answer. "So, late."

Gabriel cupped his hands around a glass that was no longer there and nodded.

"Hey, Keith, I'm gonna call those guys in the corner a taxi, alright?" the waitress said suddenly, jamming her thumb over her shoulder at a table of really drunk college kids. "Can you handle things on your own for a few?"

Sam just tipped back his head in a lazy nod, and the blond waitress hopped off to start rounding up the kids, who were completely sloshed. Gabriel watched the scene for a bit before turning back to the bar reluctantly, and chancing a glance at Sam's face. His expression was still tight and hard. A mask, almost. No, more like a wall.

"You alright?" Sam muttered at last, through gritted teeth.

Gabriel, brows furrowed in confusion, traced his gaze down from Sam's darkened eyes to his tensed neck and shoulders, then down the flexed muscles of his arms. When he was finally staring at Sam's large hands, white-knuckled as the pads of his fingers dug harshly into the counter, Gabriel was filled with a flat sort of surprise, like soda that hadn't quite lost all its fizz.

"You're angry," he found himself saying, almost dreamily.

Sam reeled back from the bar as if he'd been shocked. Then his eyes darted hard to the right. He ran a hand through his soft brown hair, managed about half a laugh, and then scowled.

"You're a douche, and a monster, but no one should—"

Sam cut himself off and took a hard breath in.

"No one should talk about anyone like that just for…"

"Being a little fruity?" Gabriel cut in with a tentative smile.

Sam's lips curved up, just for a moment, then slipped back down into a flat line. He nodded.

"I uh… Meant what I said," the archangel chipped in again, drumming his fingers on the top of the bar. "About your ass."

Sam's mouth twisted a bit, and he shot Gabriel a lightly disapproving glance that clearly said 'don't ruin the moment'. Gabriel only barely managed to reign in the lovestruck look in his eyes. Even if Sam was trying to be stern and stoic, especially to a dickish 'monster' like Gabriel, he was still the same, big-hearted moose he always was. Something fizzy and jittery bounced around in Gabriel's heart at the thought of Sam being mad on his behalf. The words 'righteous fury' came to mind, and Gabriel wondered if maybe Sam would make a more model angel than him.

Granted, a lot of people would probably make a more model angel than him, but it wasn't like he was the only one stepping in and out of lines. Balthazar and Castiel, after all, had become a bit notorious after the Apocalypse-that-wasn't.

"I don't," Sam admitted slowly, jolting Gabriel from his thoughts, "I don't like it when people treat someone like a freak for things they can't control."

The word freak slipped off the hunter's tongue oddly, and hit the floor with a crash like shattered glass. Gabriel thought maybe a shard of it pierced him. He rubbed at his sternum, but the pain did not abate. That word had been loaded.

Freak.

Sam knew the pain of being called that. And hearing the lingering cuts that word had left was both painful and warming, though the heat was not a pleasant one. Gabriel burned for justice. For a world where Sam had never had to hear that word directed at him.

"Thanks, Sambo," he said with a weak smile.

"It's Keith," Sam reminded him, blinking hard a few times.

They both realized at the same time that the waitress was back, having shipped off all the drunken college students. She'd returned to wiping down tables. Gabriel studied her to avoid Sam's too-full gaze, and began to bite down on his bottom lip absently.

But after a minute, his neck was prickling and hot, and he whipped back around because being able to look back was better than passively being stared at. But Sam had leaned down a bit, and Gabriel had raised himself up to turn on the barstool, and with a clonk that rattled in both their skulls, the top of Gabriel's head hit Sam's jaw.

"Ow, shit!"

Clutching their injuries, the two locked eyes again, and couldn't help but laugh. Gabriel wondered if he had ever wanted to kiss Sam Winchester as much as he did that very moment.

It only made the slight twinge of realization that he couldn't all the more painful.

"I—"

Gabriel wanted to think up an excuse to go. He wanted to throw himself out of the situation, but he couldn't find the words to say. Because what he _really_ wanted was to just be able to say what he really wanted, even though he couldn't do that either.

The archangel closed his eyes, tightly. Willed something, anything to the front.

As usual, it was the Trickster that made it out.

"Don't suppose I get a goodnight kiss?" he blurted before he could stop himself.

Only then did Gabriel open his eyes.

Sam's pink lips were slightly parted, halfway to a question he couldn't quite form. His brows were scrunched together. His eyes looked more green than usual in the low, yellow light.

"_What_?"

It was so much harder, Gabriel decided, to say anything with his eyes open.

"Can I kiss you?" he asked, feeling the words press hard against his teeth and his bottom lip before they flung themselves into empty space.

"Why?"

Gabriel wasn't sure whether the disbelief coloring Sam's tone was because of Gabriel himself or whether it stemmed from some more personal inner insecurity Sam held. He also wasn't sure which would be more heartbreaking.

"Just humor me, gigantor," Gabriel hedged. "It's a yes or no question, after all."

Sam just pulled a face, unconvinced.

"Please," the archangel added, not even sure himself why he felt the need to press the matter.

An odd desperation hummed in the veins of his arms.

The 'please' seemed to have changed something. Sam, resting his palms flat on the bar, leaned down to Gabriel's height. The archangel leaned in the slightest bit, leaving room for an ultimate refusal. Consent. The angel way; sort of. The nuance of that move lit Sam's eyes gently, setting the swirls of color in his irises aglow.

In the end, it was Sam who pressed their lips together.

Gabriel's heart exploded in his chest, hammering out a beat until he was sure that every part of him was squeezing the same way his heart was. Even his toes tingled with a feeling sweet and so joyful it was almost pain.

And then Sam pulled back with an odd, pleased smile and returned to working as if nothing had happened.

Gabriel, still fuzzy and strange, pressed a ten onto the countertop for the drink and didn't bother to stay for his change. He felt constricted, bottled up, and rushed for the door.

The second he was out in the hot night air, the archangel let out a whoop that hit the stars.

He threw back his head and laughed. And slowly, slowly, he let the darkness fizzle out his high until he was just left with a feeling like a warm hug being wrapped around him. Gabriel heaved a few deep breaths and smiled.

Eyes shining, the archangel glanced back at the bar, studying the light through the windows. He pressed a trembling hand to his lips.

Then Gabriel shook his head, dispelling the last of the vagueness in it, and clicked his fingers.


	16. LARPingMoondoor AU

**A/N: I've always thought Charlie should be friends with pretty much every supernatural being the boys hang out with. Now she can be! Sort of.**

**Also, though I call myself a nerd on a regular basis, I'm probably not nerdy enough to be qualified to write for Charlie. May Felicia Day forgive my sins.**

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**Chapter 16: My Kingdom for a LARPer (Starring Charlie)**

Gabriel had to blink his eyes to adjust them to the sudden light.

All around him were the sounds of a crowd, and he took in the bustle slowly, with a wicked little grin. Red tents littered the field, and people in tunics were everywhere.

"Ah, Moondoor."

Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest as he surveyed the area, waiting for a particular someone, his toes shifting restlessly in his black boots. Then, as a minute passed, he fidgeted a bit more, adjusting the belt at his waist and the hood shadowing his face.

"It's been a while," the archangel mused to himself.

And then his ears caught a wisp of familiar voice.

"—are you doing here? I thought you were in Oz."

Gabriel ducked behind a red tent, watching the two rounding the corner. A young woman with long red hair in a faux-leather jerkin, loose pants, and boots strode along in time with a much taller man in a plain red tunic whose longish brown hair was pulled back at the base of his neck. The archangel found himself nearly bouncing from glee.

Charlie and Sam. Exactly who he was looking for. He followed along, keeping out of sight but close enough to hear what they were saying.

"I'm just back for this one event," Charlie explained, tossing her bright red hair over her shoulder. "Then Dorothy needs me in Oz again. But why are you here?"

When Sam didn't answer immediately, Charlie stopped walking.

"It's not another case, is it?" she asked hurriedly, grabbing the red sleeve of his cotton tunic. "Is it another case?"

Sam shook his head.

"Nah," he answered. "After the last time, Dean got really into this stuff, you know how he is. But, uh, we never got a chance to attend another one until now."

"Whew!"

The redhead let out a big breath and clapped Sam on the shoulder, though she had to stretch her arm a bit higher than was comfortable to do so.

"Well, it might not be as magical as last time," she told him, wiggling her fingers, "but I promise it'll be just as much fun!"

Sam smiled, wide enough to show off his dimples attractively. Then a passing magician saluted Charlie, and the two of them snapped back into character.

"Ahem," said the redheaded queen, holding herself a bit more royally, "So, our handmaiden has returned, has he? And what of you?"

Sam's grin was small, as he tried to hold himself in character.

"I am at your service, Your Majesty," he told her.

"Hmmm… Well, we suppose we can knight you, at the nearest convenience," the fake queen said flippantly.

It was at that moment that Gabriel stepped out into her path. Both Sam and Charlie had to jerk to a stop to avoid crashing into him, and the redhead looked as if she were about to scold him, but then her eyes went wide.

"Hey, Gabe, you knave! What's up?" Charlie greeted, breaking character to slap the archangel a high five.

"Only the sky and your glory, my Queen," he answered with a comically low bow.

As he stood again, he pulled back his hood, as was respectful in the face of the Queen. Their moment was interrupted by a choked gasp.

"Gabriel?!"

Irises lighting up, teasing and butterscotch, Gabriel waggled his eyebrows.

"Heya, sasquatch. Nice tunic."

Charlie looked back and forth between them, contemplating, and seemed to figure something out. She put her gloved hands on her hips in a way that told Gabriel he was _so_ in for it.

"Hold!" she said authoritatively, pausing the game. "Gabriel-the-archangel Gabriel? Gabriel aka Loki aka the Trickster Gabriel?"

"Guilty."

Charlie threw her hands in the air with a shout of frustration.

"You mean I've been besties with an archangel and I haven't gotten any perks out of it yet? Where are my illusionary girlfriends?" she demanded.

Gabriel shuffled his feet in a pale mockery of sheepishness.

"You didn't ask?"

Charlie's eyes narrowed intensely.

"_We_ are asking now," she said firmly, straightening her posture so she could look down her nose at the amused archangel.

"As my lady commands."

But before Gabriel could snap his fingers, Sam had grabbed him by the front of his tunic and pulled him into the nearest tent.

"You know, Sambo, I normally save this kind of thing for the second da—"

Sam's large hands gripped Gabriel's shoulders hard, and the archangel fell into silence.

"You're here," the hunter said slowly, as if he couldn't quite understand it. "You're alive?"

"Surprise?" Gabriel offered, lifting his arms in a 'here I am' gesture as best he could with the weight of Sam's hands holding him in place.

Gabriel tried to look up, but Sam's eyes were too hard to read and even as an archangel he couldn't hold that sort of intense gaze. As if everything was upside down and Sam was the one seeing into his soul. The one angels didn't actually have.

"_Gabriel_."

"I'm here," he replied softly. "Really."

"How?" Sam demanded.

"The how's not important, Sam. I am the Trickster, after all."

The brunette's eyes narrowed, as if he were about to argue that yes, actually, the how _was_ important, but then Charlie popped her head through the tent flap. She looked around a few seconds before her eyes settled on the two of them.

"Oh," she said, sounding _almost_ disappointed. "You're not making out."

Sam opened his mouth, decided he didn't want an explanation for a comment like that, and closed it again. Gabriel pressed his lips together, torn between laughing and smacking the Queen.

"No," Sam said at last, seeing that Gabriel wasn't about to speak and shooting Charlie an unimpressed look. "We aren't."

She shrugged in response, like her error in judgment was a negligible one.

"Well, where did you say you left Dean again?" she asked.

Sam shot Gabriel a firm and scolding look, then pushed past Charlie out of the tent and began to lead the way. The archangel lingered for a moment, unsure if he was invited, and then decided to hell with it because he was an archangel and he could just very well invite himself. So he hurried up to Sam and Charlie, tucking his hands behind his back casually, and followed them as they wove through the encampment.

In front of one of the larger tents, they found Dean, fighting invisible enemies with a fake sword. Gabriel wished he had a camera, but was also cognizant of the fact that any actual magic would draw way more attention to him than he really wanted.

Instead, he clapped loudly.

Dean whirled around to face the group approaching him, fake blade held aloft, and immediately opened his mouth but found he had nothing to say. Sam shot him a smirk, and the green-eyed hunter's expression dropped into one of horror at the kind of ammunition he had given his brother.

Then his eyes locked on Gabriel and narrowed.

Charlie, being the fabulous Queen she was, noticed the tension in the air spiking and forced everyone into her royal tent and away from prying eyes for an out-of-character discussion.

"So, um, Dean, this is Gabe, my royal thief-slash-assassin who I guess you actually know since he's really the Trickster and didn't _tell_ me," the redhead rambled.

Even her nervous word vomit didn't tear Dean's glare away from Gabriel.

"You? Of all the dead people we know to suddenly not be dead, it _had_ to be you," said Dean.

"It sure did, Deano," retorted Gabriel, playing it straight. "Who else could save your sorry asses?"

"From what? LARPers?"

The archangel shrugged and shot Dean a smug, tricksterish grin before pulling a chocolate bar out of thin air. Not bothering with a verbal response to Dean's taunt, he instead proceeded to stick his tongue out at the hunter before unwrapping the candy and taking a large, satisfying bite.

"Yeah, real mature," Dean muttered.

Sam shook his head.

"Uh, look, guys…" he started, but didn't seem to have any real argument to finish with.

"Hey, we're all on the same side here, right?" Charlie piped up suddenly. "Fighting for Moondoor, well and me of course, and all that funky jazz? Look, Gabe's the Fred to my George—"

"Why do I have to be the one who di—Oh. Right."

"Ahem!" said Charlie loudly, giving Gabriel a pointed look. "And fyi I would totally be grateful if we all got to do this thing together, you know? You guys might be bitches, but you're my bitches."

The insistent look she gave them was actually almost as strong as Sam's puppy-dog eyes; only a nine point three instead of a perfect ten, but really only Sam could be perfect so it was close enough. Gabriel, of course, knew from the start that he would cave to it, but Dean crumbled too—like soggy cardboard.

"Alright, _fine_. But no tricks!"

Gabriel put a hand over his heart and faked offense. Unsurprisingly, no one believed him.

Then there was some clamoring outside the tent, and Charlie peeked out the flap.

"Oh, shizz! Ok, guys, it's show time!" she whispered back to them.

Everybody took a deep breath and rolled their shoulders, getting into character. Dean placed the heel of his palm on top of his sword's hilt, to reassure himself it was still in its scabbard. Sam hurriedly smeared on some red and white war paint, as if he just wouldn't be battle-ready without it. Gabriel put up his hood. Charlie just tossed her hair over her shoulder.

Then, in sync like they were in an action movie, the four of them strode out to meet the Followers of the Moon, Charlie's peeps, as she liked to call them. The red-and-white garbed faction split down the middle to make an aisle for Charlie, who led them out to an empty field where the other armies were gathered.

Everyone looked around, sizing up their enemies and making sure all the players were accounted for. It was silent.

Dean looked about ready to make a speech, but Charlie held out her hand delicately to stop him. Then, she extracted herself from the crowd of red-clad warriors and began to pace up and down in front of their line.

"Followers of the Moon! My kin," she began solemnly, "I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me."

There was a long pause. A few warriors shuffled. Sam was grinning under his facepaint, and Gabriel wasn't sure why he personally was so pleased that Sam was getting the reference too.

"A day may come when the courage of Moondoor fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship," the redhead admitted slowly. "but it is _not_ this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Moons comes crashing down, but it is _not_ this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Followers of the Moon!"

She let out a wordless shout and raised her sword, and their entire little army followed suit. And then, with Charlie leading the charge, Gabriel and the Winchesters at her sides, they rushed into battle.

It was a free-for-all for a long while, foam-covered swords clashing, colorful beanbags flying left, right, and diagonal. Gabriel, armed with a set of fake daggers and a few "magic spells", stuck mainly to close combat. And though his reflexes were generally sub-par, as evidenced by his inability to get out of the Dad-damned way whenever the Super Winchester Bros decided to shove a stake through his heart, it wasn't like the other LARPers were particularly coordinated.

He'd just 'sliced the throat' of a particularly troublesome Elf when he tripped over someone's helmet and fell on his ass. Which, in any sort of combat situation, was bad news.

And then there was a sword slicing towards him, and he'd dropped his daggers.

Gabriel threw up his arms protectively and closed his eyes.

Nothing happened.

He opened them again, to see that Sam had blocked the Styrofoam-covered blade's blow with his own fake longsword. And as ridiculous as it was, Gabriel found himself thinking the action rather… Dashing. His heart gave a quick, hard _thud _against his ribcage. Then Dean hauled him to his feet, and Gabriel was back in the game.

Darting in and out of the crowd, loosening belts and stealing any weapon that wasn't held onto securely, Gabriel was a force to be reckoned with once he got going, slipping back into a more lighthearted form of Trickster with ease. The other three armies, the poor sons of bitches, never stood a chance.

Once again, the Queen of Moons and her mishmash army were victorious.

Charlie went off to her tent to change out of battle gear, and Dean wandered off to the little post-battle refreshments table some of the Warriors of Yesteryear had thought to set up.

But even as many of the LARPers were relaxing or packing up, a few were still deep in game territory.

"Giant, I challenge you for your place at the Queen's side!"

Sam blinked, then pointed at himself, as if there were anyone else around that the runty squire could refer to as "giant". Then, emboldened by the first, two or three more guys crowded around and voiced challenges of their own against Sam. His hazel eyes skipped over the faces of his opponents, taking them all in. Gabriel nudged the brunette with his shoulder.

"Go defend your honor, gigantor, before I have to do it for you," he insisted.

Sam looked down at Gabriel in a way that sent the archangel's heart clamoring in his chest, then shrugged his big shoulders and went off to fight his host of adversaries. Gabriel watched, half to see the male LARPers throw themselves at 6'4" of berserker-deadly hunter in a vain attempt to win the heart of a lesbian, and half to openly gawk the way Sam's muscles flexed when he fought, even at play.

"D'you know people ship you two?" Charlie asked suddenly, leaning her shoulder against a cart.

Gabriel tensed, then eased himself down from surprise to turn and glance at her.

He _hadn't_ known people shipped them, actually. Although he had the nagging feeling maybe he was supposed to know that. The face of bouncing, boundlessly energetic Becky Rosen itched at the back of his brain like a reminder. Hm. But the idea of people thinking he and Sam would be good together was both oddly flattering, confidence-boosting even, and weird. Then again, weird he was used to; weird was like his currency.

"How exactly did you find _that_ out?"

Charlie winked, shoving him a little.

"I keep tabs on the fandom," she said with a modest shrug.

"Truly a Queen among men," Gabriel replied.

"Yeah well…" Charlie trailed off. "Flattery will get you everywhere. And you _so_ owe me for being such a fab wingwoman."

Gabriel nodded absently, finding suddenly that he couldn't tear his eyes away from Sam as he fought off three other knights in fake mortal combat. Charlie just grinned to herself.

"Holy Dad he's cute with his hair tied back," the archangel muttered.

"Why don't you just ask him out?" asked Charlie, as if shocked that he hadn't come to such an obvious conclusion.

Gabriel mussed his hair and huffed.

"That's what I'm _trying_ to do."

She gave him a skeptical look, as if to say 'are you sure?' and Gabriel pursed his lips. Just because it wasn't going so well… Everyone's a critic, he thought to himself. Gabriel took a few moments to collect his thoughts and cobble together a good counter-argument, but that very second Sam jogged up to them, sweaty and grinning as locks of his hair fell out of the hair tie at the base of his neck to frame his shining face.

Gabriel licked his lips unconsciously and hoped after the fact that Sam hadn't noticed.

"I defended my honor," the brunette joked, wiping his brow and smearing his facepaint everywhere. "And my place at your side, O' Queen of Moons."

"You have done well, young padawan," nodded Charlie sagely.

"Good job, Sambo."

Then a curvy little blonde in a shieldmaiden dress passed by, ducking her head shyly and giving a little "my Queen", eyes darting up to Charlie's. A slow smirk spread over the redhead's face. She patted Gabriel on the shoulder, not even looking back at him.

"Look, I love you and all Gabe, but—"

The archangel waggled his brows suggestively.

"May the odds be ever in your favor, _my Queen_," he teased.

She turned, just briefly, to stick out her tongue, then strode off after the blonde with her head held high and her hips swaying. Sam stared after her, looking almost puzzled.

"And I thought that dick professor got more ass than a toilet seat," said Gabriel, shaking his head. "Clearly I needed to recalibrate."

"What, lost your touch after Kali dumped you?" Sam asked, and then jolted as if realizing what he'd just said.

A laugh jumped from Gabriel's mouth, followed by a stream of noise that was half-cough.

"Oh, man, that was… That was a good one. I wasn't expecting that."

Sam made a face that reminded Gabriel of a confused puppy. It was, he thought to himself, downright adorable, like the descriptor "confused puppy" didn't point to that well enough already.

"Come on, Sambo!" he exclaimed, slapping a hand against the brunette's sweaty back. "You got me. I'm not mad. Let loose for once, sasquatch."

Sam rolled his eyes, shook his head, and tried not to smile. It didn't quite work, for which Gabriel was grateful. The archangel thought about what might happen if he went in for a hug. Aside from getting covered in moose sweat, of course, which he didn't particularly mind. The other results, well… Not so optimal.

And then he had an idea.

"Uh, Gabriel, I—"

But before Sam could say more, Gabriel had darted around behind him and leapt onto his back, forcing the unwitting hunter into giving him a piggy-back ride.

"Wow, the air really is thinner up here," he commented.

Sam flailed a little bit, but in the name of balance eventually had to grab Gabriel's legs and support the archangel's weight.

"What," he wheezed when their pose was settled, "are you doing?"

"Just changing my perspective," the archangel answered, tugging on the end of Sam's little ponytail.

"Can you stop?" Sam demanded, jerking his head a little, and even from behind Gabriel knew his expression was the press-lipped 'what do you think you're doing' one.

"Only for you."

When, after a few moments, Gabriel made no move to climb down, Sam turned his head to the left, trying to get a visual on the archangel. All he got for his trouble was a tender kiss to the temple.

"Gabriel, what—"

And then, without warning, Gabriel hopped down. Figuring he might as well push the envelope while he was ahead, he wrapped his arms around the brunette's middle and hugged him close before bounding away with a cackle. Sam just stood there, confused.

After his little escapade, Gabriel raided the refreshments table, snagging a cupcake, two brownies, and a frosted sugar cookie. He watched people tear down tents and props and load them up to take home. Finally, the archangel decided it was time to go.

He strode out to the empty battlefield, took a deep breath, and looked up at the blue sky.

He was about to snap his fingers when—

"Hey, Gabe!"

The archangel glanced back at Charlie, who was halfway across the abandoned field, close to the tents, with his head tilted.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Sam's been looking for you! Don't BS me, you've totally been hiding! When did you get all nervous?" she called, hands cupped around her mouth. "You were a total bamf in Tall Tales!"

Gabriel shrugged.

"I didn't like him then," he projected back.

"Liar!"

Gabriel didn't know what to say to that, so he just stood there, looking at her. Eventually, Charlie jogged up to him, fake sword banging against the side of her leg. When she reached him, a little out of breath, she held out a hand for a fistbump.

"B-T-dubs, you're letting yourself think too much," the redhead added. "Just go for it. He's over by my tent."

Gabriel nodded and tapped his fist against hers.

"Check you later," he said with a wry quirk of the lips.

And before Charlie could offer any more advice, Gabriel had snapped his fingers.


	17. Summer Lovin' AU

**A/N: This one's pretty short, compared to what I've been writing. Sorry, Gabriel's tough to control! He's very flighty, if you haven't noticed...**

**Only about 10 more AU idea slots to fill, so if there's an AU you really want to see, please review or send me a message so I can make sure to get it in for you! Additionally, I'm still shuffling around the order, so if there's one you NEED TO READ RIGHT NOW please just ask!**

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**Chapter 17: But Oh, Those Summer Nights**

As the world faded in around him, Gabriel found himself sitting comfortably at an outdoor café table with a ketchup-dipped French fry halfway to his mouth. With a wide grin, he flicked the fry into his mouth and started chewing.

"So?" asked the person sitting across from him, and Gabriel proceeded to choke on the French fry.

After his completely dignified coughing fit, the archangel looked up and into the eyes of one of his younger brothers.

"Balthazar?" he asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

That had not been part of the plan… Balthazar was dead, after all. No sense burning old family wounds by popping in an illusionary version of one of the murdered angels. The messy-haired blond shook his head, mouth twisted in a smug smirk and hands folded just below the skin bared by his dangerously-low v-neck.

"Oh, darling, you really do have it bad," Balthazar commented. "Was your mysterious brunette really that good in the sack?"

Gabriel snatched up the chocolate milkshake next to his plate and took a hurried sip to buy himself time to settle his nerves. Then he took a deep breath and put on his best smile. Might as well play along, right?

"He just had these eyes," the archangel explained, waving his hand elaborately. "Like… Ugh. He was a total puppy dog for someone so huge."

"You always did go for the big ones," Balthazar teased.

Gabriel winked, and felt his heart squeeze a little. Clearly he hadn't appreciated Balthazar enough. He was much more fun than Castiel or Gabriel's fellow archangels. Though it was true the archangels had always been closest to each other, everything between his older brothers was always drama, drama, drama. Gabriel had a flair for the dramatic, sure, but that was different. A distinction between elegance and beating a dead horse.

And apparently Balthazar was the only other angel that understood that.

"What about you?" Gabriel asked conversationally. "What were you up to this summer?"

Balthazar waved the question away, taking a delicate sip of the wine in front of him.

"Oh, you don't want to know about little old me!" the blond angel protested. "My life's been an utter bore, since Cassie kicked me out. Nothing to speak of!"

Gabriel quirked an eyebrow, and Balthazar relented. He put up his hands in a show of surrender.

"Alright, fine, fine. Maybe a little sexual deviancy, but that's simply the age we're in, Gabriel!"

The archangel tipped his milkshake for an impromptu toast, and Balthazar accepted it, though he rolled his eyes.

"And don't I know it," agreed Gabriel.

"So, are you planning on seeing him again?" Balthazar asked.

Gabriel shrugged, playing along with the scenario, though he knew, of course, what the truth was.

"Not sure. Never got his number or anything. Just his name: Sam."

"You, my friend, have been taking one too many cues from Grease," Balthazar complained, picking at his food.

Gabriel shrugged, guiltily, and couldn't hide a smile.

"What can I say, Bal?"

The two of them finished eating, and Gabriel reveled in the attention of another of his brothers more suited to his temperament. He almost forgot his original purpose, too pleased with his company. But once they had paid the bill, split properly down the middle, Balthazar headed off to a sporty convertible and Gabriel remembered Sam.

"I must get back to campus," Balthazar said as he left. "I still have to work on my thesis. Nasty business. You're lucky the newspaper picked you up before you wasted yourself on grad school, darling. Drop by my office, though, Gabriel, I'll be there all afternoon!"

"Sure thing, Balthazar," Gabriel agreed, letting the waterfall of precise syllables fall over him.

Then, with a sigh, the archangel stuffed his hands in his pockets and decided to walk. After all, it was his little imaginary scenario, and if he didn't want to drive he shouldn't have to, he thought with a nod. The campus was small, and only four or five blocks from the little restaurant he and Balthazar had eaten at. The familiar cut of Belle Plains Community College against the sky was comforting, somehow. Gabriel's shoulders loosened, and he fell into his usual swagger.

He wandered the campus for a few minutes, watching the firestorm of falling leaves and feeling a brisk fall wind brushing his cheeks. But after a bit, the archangel decided he had stalled enough, and headed to Balthazar's basement TA office, one of a host of basement offices used by grad students. It was a less than extravagant set of accommodations, but in a community college that was to be expected.

He knocked on office door number 69, snickering to himself.

"Bal, I've come to visit!"

The door creaked open, but it wasn't Balthazar immediately on the other side. No, the blond sat further back inside the office, in a rolling chair with his feet propped on his desk. Instead, Gabriel found himself face-to-chest with all 6'4" of mysterious summer stranger.

"Gabriel…?"

The brunette's eyes looked so shocked and wide, it was hard not to laugh at him or ruffle his hair. Gabriel put all that unspent energy into his posture.

"Hey there, Sambo."

Sam blushed red from the tips of his ears to the curve of his neck where shirt met skin. Gabriel just grinned up at him, pleased.

"Oh, so this is the famous Sam?" Balthazar called from his chair, shattering the moment into a million fragments.

Gabriel shifted his weight slightly, unsure whether to be angry or relieved.

"Famous?" Sam asked softly, hazel eyes going brown and shy.

"What, did you think I'd forget about you?" the archangel teased.

He found, in that moment, that it was so much easier to press a hand against Sam's cheek when he was being looked at so innocently. Something about the heat where their skin connected kept tugging at Gabriel's lips until he was wearing a goofy smile that would have embarrassed Michael.

Fake memories danced in front of the archangel's eyes.

The arc of Sam's back as he dove into the ocean. Stunning hazel eyes lit by the sun blazing down into warm waters. The barest tint of pink to Sam's well-defined features, just soft enough to be blamed on sun. A fumbling proposition, on both parts. A kiss. Two. Three. The two of them lying on soft white sand, hands intertwined.

The way Sam's eyes melted told Gabriel that their minds were on a similar track.

"Look, not that I particularly mind watching people eye-fuck in my doorway, but I will have to leave the office eventually," said Balthazar out of nowhere.

Gabriel blinked a few times and shook his head to dislodge the fuzzy heat of the memories.

"Yeah, sure," Sam replied absently, stepping out into the hallway and forcing Gabriel to back up and his hand to fall away from Sam's face.

"You know, we could always…"

Gabriel wasn't actually sure what he was trying to say. Thankfully, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder with his thumb seemed to be enough to let the pieces click into place for Sam. The brunette smiled and led the way up the stairs and out of the building. Gabriel trailed after him, much like a lovesick puppy, if Balthazar's acoustically-enhanced mutterings were anything to go off of. But the archangel didn't let that bother him.

Following Sam's lead, he settled on a bench on the campus green.

"I… Didn't think I'd ever see you again," Sam said at last, tipping his head back and keeping his eyes trained on the sky above them.

"Did you want to?"

The question was out before Gabriel could filter himself, but somehow he didn't find himself as nervous as usual. It was oddly soothing to talk to Sam out of a context of their world. From a place of normalcy, human to human. No giant secrets, no hunter-monster barrier, no weight of death pressing down over them both. Gabriel felt a quick twinge in his aorta, psychosomatic, and decided to ignore it.

"I did," Sam admitted into the silence of Gabriel's musings, sounding almost surprised.

A toothy smile split the archangel's lips before he schooled himself back to a trickster grin.

"Me too, Sammy-boy," he said.

"Really…?"

As usual, Sam Winchester's eyes were heart-stopping. They were swirling with a little more green than normal, and Gabriel's mind got stuck on that thought, an odd loop, because his mind was having trouble processing that Sam had whipped his gaze from the sky directly into Gabriel's eyes without so much as a pause.

"Of course," he all but gasped as the disbelief in Sam's voice finally registered. "_Of course_ I wanted to see you again."

And then Gabriel felt a pair of slightly-chapped lips pressed against his own. And if that wasn't a shock to his system, nothing could be. He tangled his squared fingers in Sam's dark hair, and decided that everything was perfect.

It was a peculiar high.

None of the nervousness he'd felt in his previous practices, the odd pressure squeezed against his lungs, all his mistakes. It was just… Gone.

Gabriel let the kiss and the fake summer memories pull him into a freeing sort of bliss.

Just a newspaper columnist sitting on a bench in late fall and kissing a beautiful guy.

"Winchester," Sam breathed when they parted for air.

"Hm…?" Gabriel murmured.

"My last name, it's Winchester," Sam explained, letting out a soft laugh that shone like polished glass.

"Gabriel Milton, at your service," the archangel said, tucking his head into the crook of Sam's neck in a way he was sure he could never have gotten away with had he been sitting with the real Sam Winchester.

"Think I'll see you around, Mr. Milton?" Sam asked.

Gabriel had a witty, flirty response on the tip of his tongue, but somehow, something else tumbled past his lips.

"I love you."

Sam tensed, clutching the archangel closer, and Gabriel panicked.

He pulled his right arm away, feeling Sam's soft hair sliding over his palm for a second. The rest of him was tucked close to the brunette's chest, but his frantic heart didn't even afford him time to pull away fully.

Once his hand was free, Gabriel clicked his fingers together.


	18. Wedding Party AU

**A/N: Ok, I'm still settling things around, but they're getting as bit more finalized. The next batch of chapters is going to be mostly domestic-ish or cheesy romcom AUs, outside the realm of the supernatural, now that Gabe's gotten a taste of life without baggage and become addicted. Still about 10 slots open, and if there's any romcom-ish plot you wanna see, speak now or forever hold your peace.**

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**Chapter 18: An Angel Counts As Something Old, Right?**

The first thing Gabriel heard was organ music. The first thing he saw was the glare of light off a stained-glass window. And then, stepping through the glare, was a beautiful fairy. She strode elegantly to the altar, on the arm of a sly-eyed woman that Gabriel had the distinct feeling he had met somewhere before. Their eyes connected with a sizzling spark, and Gabriel felt a shudder rip down his spine.

Queen Mab.

Charlie Bradbury's – for it was the adventurous redhead who stood at the altar waiting for the procession of fairies in a plaid button-up – soon-to-be wife was being led down the aisle by _Queen Mab_. The archangel smiled nervously.

"Alright," said a very official-looking woman from the doors of the church. "Good, good, everyone looked very nice. Good space, good pacing. We should be ready."

The rigidity in the room broke like a dam, and everyone eased into slouches and rolled their shoulders. Gabriel felt more comfortable looking around at the rest of the wedding party. He was standing next to a man he didn't know, but who gave off the aura of fairy the same way Charlie's fiancée did. Beyond him were Sam and Dean. Gabriel's grin appeared immediately. On the other side of the brides was a line of four women, headed by Dorothy. The other three were fairies. All in all, everyone appeared to be in high spirits, especially Charlie and Gilda, if he was guessing the identity of the bridelier bride.

"Alright, guys! Time for food!" Charlie cheered, throwing up a Vulcan hand sign with one arm and wrapping the other around Gilda's waist.

So the entire group filed out after them, and Gabriel stayed near the back because Sam's jeans, while not quite of the skinny-jean variety hugged his tush nicely, and the archangel was not about to miss out on a view like that. Thankfully, instead of a hunter, Sam Winchester was a fairly successful lawyer, and did not have the tactical know-how to realize that his butt was under close scrutiny.

Because Gabriel had decided that practice sans baggage was much more fun, completely ignoring that the 'baggage' was the reason practice was necessary in the first place.

"You're eying him like a piece of meat," Dorothy commented with a wry grin.

Gabriel coughed.

"Well, I wouldn't say that, Indee," he disagreed.

She quirked an eyebrow, but eventually shrugged and chose not to comment on the nickname.

"If you say so. But Charlie definitely noticed. Your assigned seat at dinner is next to him."

And that was right about the time that Gabriel simultaneously tripped and choked on his breath. He tumbled down the four steps at the doors of the church and landed with his ass in the air. The archangel was glad that, while he hated attention, he had learned not to get overly embarrassed or angry when others laughed at him.

"Hey, are you alright?"

A large hand wrapped around Gabriel's forearm, and he was hauled to his feet and inadvertently into the chest of Sam Winchester.

"Perfectly fine, Sambo," the archangel replied, muffled by the flannel of Sam's shirt.

Gently, Sam shifted his grip higher to pull them apart, ducking a little so he could look Gabriel in the eyes.

"Gabriel… Right?"

He just nodded dumbly in response, feeling a little high and fuzzy from the way Sam's fingers curled around his biceps.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," Gabriel quipped at last, unsure exactly how he had managed the brain power to get the words into the open air.

Laughing at himself a little, he pulled out of Sam's hold and turned to continue following after Charlie and Gilda. And then a large arm hooked through his. Gabriel's amber eyes shot up to Sam's face. The brunette pulled a sheepish, close-lipped puppy-dog smile.

"Just in case you lose your balance again," he explained, as if that were a perfectly logical reason to walk arm-in-arm with someone you'd only just met the day before.

Not that Gabriel was complaining.

Especially when he found out that Dorothy had been telling the truth.

In fact, the archangel was almost lost in a sea of thoughts that mostly consisted of a three-letter name when he happened to look over at the caterers setting up the food for the rehearsal dinner. As he did, one of them looked up with a messy head of blond hair and a dirty smirk.

Balthazar.

Again. Where he wasn't supposed to be. Again.

A prickle of discomfort climbed the back of Gabriel's neck, and he had to rub at it. Balthazar just winked and turned back to what he was supposed to be doing.

"You alright?" Sam whispered.

Gabriel put on a charming smile, trying not to watch Balthazar out of the corner of his eye.

"You seem to ask that a lot."

"You seem prone to distraction," Sam retorted, fiddling with a salad fork.

The archangel let out a bark of laughter that had Dorothy and Queen Mab looking at him disapprovingly, and Charlie looking too pleased with herself.

"I guess I do," he admitted at last.

Most of the meal was spent in quiet, polite conversation. It was odd to be gathered in a family-like setting where no one was arguing. But it was a good sort of odd. Almost… Comfortable.

"So, Gabriel, how do you know Charlie and Gilda?" Sam asked politely, cutting his food into equally-polite little bites.

"Charlie and I share some hobbies," the archangel answered. "LARPing, that sorta thing. I… I like to act."

Gabriel was almost shocked to find himself tucking a stray lock of hair behind his ear and wondered when he had regressed to a twenty-something bookworm romance novel protagonist. Not that there was anything wrong with that except that it was highly out of character for him and Gabriel took offense on principle.

"That's really cool," said Sam, in a way that made it obvious that he meant what he was saying.

He'd ducked his head a bit again, to look Gabriel in the eyes. Whenever he turned his face, the color shifted, like a kaleidoscope, and the archangel found himself mesmerized with tracking the changes.

"Yeah, uh… What about you, gigantor? What's your relationship to the bride and… Bride?" Gabriel asked, clearing his throat.

Sam blushed red to the tips of his ears and fidgeted.

"My brother, Dean," he explained, gesturing to the green-eyed man further down the table, "and I… We, uh… We saved Charlie from some muggers. We… Kept in touch after that, and she helped us out with a few things. It sounds kind of weird out of context…"

Gabriel leaned his chin on his palm, and twisted a little in his chair to face Sam more obviously.

"Nah, it sounds… Sweet. Glad somebody's been looking out for the little ginger daredevil."

"I heard that, Gabe!" Charlie huffed from four places down the table.

Her exaggerated pout told him she was faking her anger, but Gilda rubbed a thumb over the top of her hand anyway and that was almost too sweet even for Gabriel. He smiled and looked away.

The rest of dinner was hazy and pleasant, except for the eerie shudder Gabriel had to suppress whenever he caught sight of his supposedly-dead brother. _Something_ was up with Balthazar. But he'd have to wait and see just what, and Sam was too good of a distraction to pass up.

After everyone was finished, they drove back to the hotel they'd all booked rooms at for the night. Dean had argued for going out and celebrating, but Charlie reminded him that one, she had already had her bachelorette party, and two, she would dismantle his phone and his car if he showed up to her wedding drunk or hung over.

While pulling his room key from his pocket, Gabriel caught the brothers Winchester scuffling a bit at the end of the hall. Dean appeared to be trying to wrestle his younger brother down to a height appropriate for a noogie, and Sam was having none of it. Then, suddenly, they were both looking at him.

Gabriel fumbled and dropped his key.

Dean nudged his brother, said something with a suggestive smirk, and knocked on the door to a room that was definitely not his own. Sam shuffled his feet and dug in his pockets for his key. Gabriel bent down slowly to recover his own, but whatever Dean had said to Sam didn't seem to take.

With a shrug and a pull of hand through his blond-brown hair, the archangel entered his hotel room and closed the door.

It was ten minutes later, when Gabriel was wearing only boxers and an undershirt and debating whether to just snap out, that a tap-tap-tap sounded on his door. He pulled it open slightly and came face-to-chest with Sam, who was still fully dressed.

Gabriel dredged up some water from his well of Trickster and leaned his shoulder against the doorframe, crossing his ankles.

"What're you doing in my neck of the woods, gigantor?"

Sam opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking baffled as to how he actually _had_ ended up in Gabriel's neck of the woods. He squeezed his hazel eyes shut and breathed through his nose. After a shake of his head that had his soft hair flying in every direction, he spoke again.

"Uh. I mean, there's kind of a… _Thing_ about sleeping with someone else in the wedding party, right? So, I… Came to collect."

Gabriel bit his lower lip, hard, trying to reign in his reaction from the extremes of laughing or tackling the brunette where he stood.

"Well, Sambo, come on in then," he said at last, pulling the door wide open and gesturing inside.

"Thanks."

Gabriel considered, while making sure that the door closed with a soft click and not a slam, that he had just received the most polite booty call in probably the history of the world, and that his claim was further substantiated by the fact that he had, actually, been around for the entire history of the world. He was so busy being charmed that he was completely caught off guard when Sam slammed him into the closed door and kissed him.

It was feverish and frantic, and Gabriel got caught up in the feeling of it despite whatever better judgment he might have claimed to have. His fingers fumbled with the buttons on Sam's shirt, and he couldn't see what he was doing because whenever Sam pulled away for air he surged forward again almost immediately.

But when Gabriel's hands had successfully navigated getting Sam out of his shirt and drifted down to the brunette's belt, Sam recoiled. The archangel stilled immediately, and held up his hands in what he hoped was a calming gesture.

"S-sorry," Sam stammered, before Gabriel had a chance to apologize.

"… What?"

"No, I just, I… Sorry, it's just Dean said I should… And I thought I'd be fine but…"

The brunette looked torn, but then shook his head and pulled Gabriel into his arms again. The angel's head was spinning from all the mixed signals, but when Sam leaned down to kiss him, he curled his hands around the taller man's arms and held him back.

"Sam. What's the problem?"

The lack of a nickname seemed to startle the lawyer back to himself.

"I, uh… I just don't normally do this sort of thing…" Sam mumbled, shoving his hair out of his face nervously.

Gabriel pulled back further immediately. Right. Vulnerability.

"Guys, or sex with people you barely know?" he teased, rubbing his right thumb over Sam's stupidly huge bicep and trying to convey a sense of open easiness.

He was pleased to receive a laugh for his efforts.

"Both," admitted Sam.

"You know, Sasquatch, we don't actually have to _do_ anything. I'll still let you brag to Deano, no strings attached."

Sam's doe-eyed gaze was so warm it _glowed_, even when he was only lit by a strip of cool, silvery moonlight. Gabriel thought he might actually melt, and an airy feeling surged up through his chest at the shine in the brunette's eyes.

"Can I still kiss you?" Sam asked hoarsely.

Gabriel pressed his lips together as he fought off a stupid grin.

"I think I'd like that."

The kiss was hard and intense, especially after the open softness of Sam's admissions, but it lacked the panic of his previous kisses. Gabriel's world was overwhelmed, shrinking down to the press of lip to lip and the blanket of safe heat he felt settling over him when Sam pulled him closer.

"There," the archangel said softly, searching Sam's eyes with his own. "Isn't this better, Sammy-boy?"

The brunette hugged him tight, tucking Gabriel's head under his chin.

"Much," he admitted, to Gabriel's pleasure.

"Isn't life so much easier when we use our words instead of listening to stupid older brothers?" he teased, eyes sparkling gold in the sparse light.

Sam pulled back and looked down at Gabriel with a sudden, pleasant understanding in his gaze.

"Yes, it is."

And his voice was so sweet that Gabriel was once again thrown completely off when he was hauled into a fireman's carry by his gigantic fellow groomsman. Sam dropped him onto the hotel bed with a smile, and then proceeded to sit on the edge of the bed and take off his socks and shoes politely.

Gabriel shook his head, but couldn't banish the wide smile from his face.

"Nerd."

Sam glanced back at him.

"Midget."

And Gabriel pouted, even though he didn't mean it and they both knew it. Then Sam rolled into bed and wiggled around to get comfortable. He slept on his back, with his hands over his stomach. Gabriel just watched, lying on his side. After a few minutes of peaceful silence, Sam's left hand searched out Gabriel's right in the dark.

Nothing more was said, but for once Gabriel felt that that was perfectly fine.

The archangel woke up the next morning with golden sunlight rippling over the bedspread and onto Sam's slowly rising chest. His brain was fuzzy, and he realized how odd it was that he'd immersed himself into the practice world enough to sleep at all.

And then he decided it was all worth it to wake up to Sam sleeping and imagine it was something he could do every morning. The realization that it wasn't hit him like a train, knocking the air from his lungs.

"That's what the practice is _for_, jackass," Gabriel muttered to himself, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes.

When his vision was clear and his breathing had settled, Gabriel took a long last look at Sam, whose chocolate hair was dappled in sunshine.

It took all the angel's willpower to click his fingers together.


	19. Drunken Meeting AU

**A/N: Sorry for the major delay. Pre-finals has been kicking my ass. All my professors want their assignments turned in by the end of next week, even though finals is the week after that. Ugh. But I'm sure you came here for Sabriel, not complaints. So. Carry on.**

**I've banged it out as best I could, so I hope it lives up to expectations!**

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**Chapter 19: Red Lolly, Drunk and In Love**

Blaring club music had Gabriel blinking hard. He snapped his fingers subtly a few times to the beat, lowering the volume to one that was more acceptable to someone who'd recently hopped into the scene from absolute silence.

He was in a large house, more of a manor, which appeared to be mostly white. There were no strobe lights to accompany the music, but a few strings of rainbow Christmas lights were crisscrossing over the ceiling. Gabriel smirked and shook his head, and only then realized he had a big round cocktail glass in his hand. It was full of something pinkish-red, smattered with ice, and had a black straw peeking out of the top. The archangel took a tentative sip, not that he doubted his own drink-mixing abilities, but he was still, after all, a little on edge from seeing his dead brother twice where he _was not_ supposed to be.

Strawberry. With a hint of… Cranberry?

"Hm."

And then he was startled by a hard slap on the back. Eyes flaring gold in annoyance, he rounded on the slapper, only to come face-to-face with Balthazar and completely choke.

"Darling, you're going to give yourself medical complications drinking a sugar-laden monstrosity like that," Balthazar teased.

Gabriel huffed, sucking down another gulp of his fruity drink.

"I'm older and I'll do what I want," he managed at last, grumpily.

"Older than what? Me or Mt. Vesuvius?" the blond asked, pouring himself a glass of white wine.

"Fuck you, Bal."

But Balthazar just laughed. And then the door rang, and he sashayed off in his stupid gray v-neck to greet their guests. A house party, then. Gabriel had had a fair few of those in his time, though most of them were slightly more magical in nature.

Not that this seemed to be any less rocking. Humans, after all, could party damn hard. The archangel grinned, and mingled easily. He was dressed inconspicuously, just the way he liked it, and with everyone drinking he could people-watch as much as he liked.

"Sure are a lot of college kids here," the archangel commented when his blond brother approached. "How many of them are going to end up in your bed tonight?"

Balthazar put a hand to his chest, as if he were affronted.

"I'll have you know they're almost all grad students. And besides, just because you're saving yourself—"

Gabriel spluttered.

"Saving- I am not saving myself, fuck you!"

"You know, Gabriel, dear, that's the second time tonight you've said that, but incest is a little too rich for even my hedonistic blood, I'm afraid," the younger angel teased. "Now why don't you be a lamb and go mix drinks for our guests."

Gabriel's amber eyes narrowed, though in the end he just huffed petulantly and did as requested.

It was a distraction, at least.

But Gabriel's eyes were immediately at the door the second Sam Winchester stepped over the threshold.

The blinking of Christmas lights illuminated the planes of his face, first on one side, then the other, and it was oddly riveting. Not that Sam wasn't oddly riveting in and of himself, but that was different. It was more the vision of color and light that had Gabriel staring like an idiot until a pretty redhead asked if he was going to hand her her appletini or what.

With an absent nod, Gabriel gave her the drink, picked up his own, which, while still cold, had lost most of its ice, and gravitated towards Sam.

"Never seen you in my house before," Gabriel commented, taking a sip of his 'sugar-laden monstrosity' of a cocktail.

Sam took a moment to search for who was addressing him, and had to adjust his gaze downward. Gabriel kept up a cheesy grin, and Sam looked unimpressed, but in an amused way.

"Do you feed everyone that line, or…?" he asked, the smirk on his face dangerously close to hinting at his dimples.

"Only the cute ones," the archangel assured him with a wink. "I'm Gabriel by the way."

The brunette nodded.

"Sam."

"Well, Sammy-boy, would you like a drink?" Gabriel offered with a wave of his free hand.

Sam opened his mouth and shifted on his feet. He looked to be about to protest, but after looking into Gabriel's eyes he swallowed and seemed to change his mind.

"Sure, uh… What's cold?"

"Well, to be honest, pretty much everything."

Gabriel gestured to the partial-bar set up, and Sam whistled.

"Wow. You weren't kidding," the brunette muttered.

Gabriel pressed a hand to his heart, and gave a mockingly affronted gasp.

"First thing you need to know about me, Sambo," he said solemnly. "I never kid."

Sam didn't appear to believe him. Gabriel smirked. Smart boy. Not that he expected any less, Sam was stubborn, not stupid. Well, maybe he was stupid sometimes, but only in the best way. When he wasn't off setting off Apocalypses with his brother.

"I'll just have a glass of wine, your uh… Bar looks busy," Sam pointed out.

Gabriel tilted his head, but it was true. Balthazar was mixing and pouring and flirting up a storm. The archangel wondered if maybe his joke about how many of the partygoers would end up in Balthazar's bed wasn't actually much of a joke. With a sigh and a roll of his amber eyes, which switching between more red and more blue with the blinking of the lights, he snagged a good bottle of wine and a wine glass and poured Sam a drink.

"Here you go, Sasquatch. Wanna find somewhere a bit less… Whatever this is, to stand around?" he offered.

Sam nodded, then gestured with his glass to a less crowded corner. Once the two of them were safely tucked away from the bustle of the party, Sam looked around at the house itself. Gabriel watched his hazel eyes flick over the interior architecture, which he himself honestly couldn't care less about. And then the brunette tipped his head, a bit like a curious puppy.

"So what… What is that thing?" he asked, pointing to a shimmering object resting on hooks on the wall.

Gabriel took a sip of his drink and leaned forward a bit to study it. Long, silver, pointed at one end. His heart lurched hard in his chest. That was an archangel blade. What was that doing in his practice? It was bad enough that he still had to carry his own around, but for it to be flaunted on the wall like a trophy? He could still feel silvery ice pressing into his side.

The world tipped, hard.

Gabriel tripped and blamed it on the alcohol. Sam hooked an arm around his middle to halt his fall and haul the archangel to his feet again. But Balthazar was over next to him in an instant, and Gabriel was never so grateful for the blond's inexplicable appearance in the illusion.

"I have to—Bathroom," Gabriel stammered, heart pounding hard against his ribs. "Bal, can you—?"

The blond just smirked, raising a hand in understanding. As Gabriel rushed up the stairs, clutching his chest, he vaguely heard Balthazar introducing himself and had an odd sinking feeling in the lower right half of his frontal lobe that told him he had made a bad decision. But it was too late and he couldn't breathe.

With a slam, Gabriel locked himself in the bathroom, thanking his lucky stars that no one was already in there. He took a shuddering inhale, resting the back of his head against the door.

"Fuck me sideways," he gasped out, trying in vain to laugh at his own idiocy. "Come on, chowderhead."

It took a full five minutes before he was able to stand upright, and another three to fix his disheveled hair back into its casually-swept-back style. Someone had been knocking incessantly on the door for the last minute of that time, but Gabriel knew better than to rush himself. After splashing some water on his face and checking the mirror one more time, the archangel threw open the door and was shoved aside by a man in what probably had once been a nice button-up.

The door slammed, and Gabriel was in the hallway, alone.

He sighed. And then there was a little pitter-patter of tiny paws.

"Rugby! What're you doing here?" Gabriel asked, voice pitching up in pleased surprise.

The Jack Russell wagged his tail, arching his neck a little. Gabriel picked the little black and white dog gently.

"Hey, buddy… It's been a while, hasn't it…?"

In response, the dog just burrowed his head into Gabriel's shoulder.

"Yeah, I guess it would be kinda loud around here for you," the archangel answered. "Why don't you gco hide out in my room?"

The dog squirmed and Gabriel set him back down, watching with soft golden eyes as the little guy trotted into his room. Then the archangel closed the door gently, to muffle any outside noise. With a grin, he dusted off his hands and turned back towards the party.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Balthazar was nowhere to be seen. But Sam was waiting dutifully, holding a glass of something dangerously clear and swaying from side to side with the music. He was almost a head taller than everyone else in the room. Gabriel, deciding he needed another drink, grabbed a newly-finished cocktail from the hands of whichever guest had decided to fill in as drink mixer and headed back over to Sam.

"What on earth are you drinking?" the archangel demanded outright. "That is _not_ what I left you with."

Sam blinked, looking down into his glass like he was seeing it for the first time.

"Oh," he said. "Balthazar gave me a… A thingie. Of stuff."

Well, that was coherent. Gabriel squinted, getting up on his tiptoes to study Sam's face.

"Are you drunk, Sasquatch?"

The brunette just shrugged sloppily, lips pushing into a half-pout. Gabriel swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut to remember that perspective was important and that people could not legally consent when they were completely smashed. That done, he offered Sam an insincere, winning smile.

"I think you've had enough, Sambo," he decided, easing the glass of Dad-knew-what from Sam's hand.

"Fun-sucker," the brunette grumbled in response.

With two half-finished drinks occupying his hands, Gabriel could only pull a baffled, slightly-worried face since he couldn't risk gesticulating and sloshing alcohol all over the fluffy ivory carpet.

"Uh… What was that?"

Sam's sullen grumpy face was back in full force.

"You sucked all the fun away. Fun-sucker," he explained, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Gabriel pressed his lips together and tried to school himself out of laughing.

"I might be a fun-sucker, but you're three sheets to the wind, kiddo," the archangel managed at last.

"Don't call me kiddo," Sam huffed. "I'm big."

"Yes," Gabriel agreed, reaching up to pat the brunette on his strong shoulder. "Yes you are. But you're also being ridiculous and petulant."

Sam's lower lip jutted out a bit farther.

"So? Don't use big words when I'm drunk."

Gabriel shook his head, a smirk tugging at his lips. He slapped Sam on the back lightly, and sighed.

"You got a ride home, Sambo?"

Sam's brow furrowed as he thought, and then he shook his head and his brown hair swished from side to side.

"No, I… I walked from the…" he frowned, gesturing vaguely. "The place."

Ah, yes, the place. Helpful. But Gabriel found himself amused nonetheless. He'd never encountered Sam drunk before, and it was something of a treat. And without being able to give reliable directions, Sam would probably have to stay.

"Why don't you go crash in one of the spare bedrooms, alright?"

"Fiiiine."

Sam slouched up the staircase and Gabriel sighed appreciatively, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I hate to see him go, but I love to watch him leave."

The rest of the night was a candy-colored blur.

Gabriel squinted blearily against the sun's assault on his eyelids. The carnage from the party was widespread but expected. Overturned bottles of vodka, empty. Cocktail glasses and whiskey tumblers stacked precariously on every solid surface. An upended red stiletto that looked really familiar. Gabriel made a mental note to give it back to whoever had lost it, the second he remembered whose it was.

And then he shook his head hard to gain a little distance from the illusion. Extract himself from the scenario, a bit. Practice, he was practicing.

The point was that it was much too early to worry about any sort of mess, so the Trickster dragged himself up the stairs and into his room.

His brow furrowed.

"Someone's been sleeping in my bed," he recited with only a hint of early-morning slurring, ruffling a hand through his golden-brown hair. "And they're still here."

Sam was sprawled crookedly across the top of the comforter, one arm hanging off the edge of the bed and the other bunched around a fistful of pillow. Rugby was curled up in the hollow of the brunette's lower back, snoring lightly.

The archangel sighed, shaking his head but grinning like a fool.

The noise woke up Rugby, who lifted his head and cocked it to the side. Upon looking up at Gabriel, the dog leapt up excitedly, and trotted across Sam's butt and down his legs. The brunette rolled over due to the odd sensation and fell off the bed, taking one of Gabriel's pillows with him. The shift in weight propelled Rugby right into Gabriel's arms.

By the time that Sam managed to sit up, hair mussed and sticking in every direction, Gabriel was laughing so hard that he was nearly doubled over, still clutching his hapless Jack Russell to his chest.

"Where…?" Sam groaned, clutching his head with his left hand.

"Have a good sleep, Sasquatch?" Gabriel asked softly once his laughter had died away.

He set Rugby on the ground and the dog immediately trotted over to cozy up to Sam. The archangel took that distraction as opportunity to quietly snap his fingers. Then, he handed Sam the glass of water he had produced.

"Thanks," the brunette said, voice hoarse.

He downed the glass of water in two large gulps and exhaled loudly.

"Anytime."

Sam used the heel of his palm to push the hair from his eyes and looked around the room, squinting slightly. There were pictures hung on the wall, just little ones. Gabriel and Kali, a picture of the big extended angel family, all looking a bit uncomfortable and strange.

"Sorry, I… Is this your room?" Sam asked. "God, I'm sorry."

"No harm no foul, Sambo," Gabriel promised, extending a hand to help haul the giant to his feet. "It was a bit of a pleasant surprise, if anything."

Sam choked and started coughing.

"S-sorry, _what_?" he asked after he'd caught his breath.

"Just glad you didn't choke on your own vomit," the archangel teased, reaching up to flick a stubborn lock of hair from Sam's face. "_That_ would've killed my buzz."

"R-right, of course."

The side of Sam's face was dappled by the light peeking in past Gabriel's blinds. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his mouth was a little slack with sleep. He was unkempt and stupid and beautiful and Gabriel felt his heart melt down into his stomach. Hopefully it would be quickly devoured by acid, but Gabriel couldn't really count on being so lucky.

"Wanna stay for breakfast?" he offered before he even realized he had.

Sam ducked his head slightly to get a better look into Gabriel's eyes.

"Uh… Are you sure?"

"I flip a mean flapjack."

Sam blinked. And then he nodded.

"Um. Yeah, alright. Thanks," he said, tone colored with surprise in a way that made Gabriel's lips pull a tiny smile.

"Good!" Gabriel said firmly, leading the way out into the hall.

With a little skip in his step, Rugby trailed after them. Even though he cringed a bit at the state of the main room, Sam spent most of the time that Gabriel cooked admiring the kitchen. He traced his fingertips over the granite countertops and mouthed the names of the buttons on the fridge to himself. Sam was only pulled from his observation when Gabriel set a dish heaping with steaming, buttery pancakes onto the kitchen's island. Then, he took a deep breath.

"Mmmm… These smell delicious, Gabriel."

As soon as Gabriel supplied him with a fork, Sam dug in like a man starved. He didn't even bother to ask for syrup, which was as good as a cardinal sin in Gabriel's book, but he let it slide with only a stupid smile on his face as he watched the 6'4" monstrosity slouched in his kitchen devour pancakes like most other animals of prey devoured their kill.

Thankfully, it was only after they had both eaten that Balthazar walked in, which spared both Sam and Gabriel from any messy spit-takes.

"So you did get him into bed!" the blond exclaimed.

Gabriel shot Balthazar a gold-tinged death glare while Sam stared down at him questioningly.

"It's, uh—"

"Did he make you pancakes?" Balthazar interrupted, sniffing the air. "He never makes _me_ pancakes."

"That's because you're insufferable," Gabriel huffed.

Sam just looked back and forth between the two of them, unsure who to believe or what to say.

"If you kiss him," Balthazar tempted, "he might actually turn into a prince, who knows?"

And, to everyone's surprise, perhaps including his own, Sam leaned down and pressed a quick peck to Gabriel's forehead.

"Thanks," the brunette said, clearing his throat. "For, uh… The pancakes. And looking out for me last night. I don't usually get that drunk—"

"Wouldn't matter even if you did," Gabriel insisted, waving the apology away with one squared hand.

Sam smiled sheepishly, in a 'maybe I'm still drunk' way, even though it was clear by his hangover that he had at least recovered his vocabulary faculties.

"I should probably get back anyway, my brother will be wondering where I am," Sam explained, pushing himself away from the island and turning towards the exit.

"Sure you don't need a ride?" Gabriel asked hurriedly.

Sam turned back, and his smile accentuated his dimples.

"Nah. I'm fine, I can walk."

"You can come back any time," said Gabriel. "Really, Sammy-boy."

Sam nodded, waved, and stepped out of the house.

"See you around," he said as a form of farewell, in the sort of tone that implied that yes, they would be seeing one another again.

Gabriel rested his elbows on the counter and his head on his hands, and let out a content sigh. Balthazar opened his mouth.

"Don't wanna hear it, bro."

And with a playful smirk, Gabriel snapped his fingers before Balthazar could come up with a retort.


	20. The Bachelor AU

**A/N: I feel like most of you probably don't care enough about The Bachelor for me to do any extensive research into how accurately I'm writing this. The truth is I've mostly only seen it by accident when my mother was watching, so I can't quite recall how everything goes down the first night.**

**Sorry this took so long. Finals killed my motivation.**

* * *

**Chapter 20: And the Rose Goes To…**

Gabriel looked up at the late afternoon sky, resting his hands behind him on the stone bench he had materialized on.

"I knew I'd find you slacking off out here."

Gabriel thought to himself that that was a little unfair, considering he hadn't even been in the new scene long enough to really slack off yet.

"Hey, bro," he greeted Balthazar, a sardonic twist to his smile.

"You know we have to do a few more interview scenes before the girls arrive," the blond angel said huffily, pointing at the Rolex on his wrist.

"Sure," Gabriel agreed, placing his hands on his knees and moving to stand. "But first you're going to tell me what you're doing here, Bal."

Balthazar looked unimpressed.

"I'm the host of the show, of course. You can't have The Bachelor without its host, Gabriel."

Amber eyes narrowed, and Gabriel gave his brother a burning look, the one that screamed archangel, weapon of heaven, not to be trifled with. As lackadaisical as Gabriel could be, and as much as he liked to play the carefree Trickster, there was a point he was not willing to be pushed past. He'd had enough.

"I mean you, Balthazar, angel to angel. What are you doing here, in my little toybox?" he demanded. "You're dead."

Balthazar nodded, eyes going a bit distant, and rubbed the heel of his hand against his sternum in a way that made the hair on Gabriel's arms prickle with familiarity. Short, squarish fingers probed at his own side before the archangel realized they were both remembering the kind of cool kick of a deathblow from an angel blade.

Balthazar seemed to notice too, and laughed hoarsely.

"You know what I mean, don't you?" the blond asked. "I'm just trying to be helpful is all. We're still playing by your rules, Gabriel, you're the archangel here."

It wasn't much of an answer, but Gabriel decided to accept it.

"Alright fine. But no funny business, Bal, that's my job," he ordered.

Balthazar gave a mocking half-salute.

"Now hurry up, how on earth are we going to get our high-drama Bachelor-falls-for-cameraman story if you're not behind the camera?"

And even though he would never admit it, except that yes he would because Gabriel had a hard time shutting up about Sam Winchester, the image of that stupidly beautiful moose man in an expensive fancy tux instead of his fakey "fed threads" was enough to get his feathery ass in gear. Gabriel realized whilst jogging back towards the front of the mansion that he was clad in a comfy staff tee and jeans, just the way he liked it.

He stopped short with a gasp when the earnest Bachelor himself came into view.

Sam, unaware of his own sparkly beauty as usual, just shot Gabriel a wide-eyed look of surprise. And then he took two long strides forward and offered a hand to shake.

"Hi, you must be one of the cameramen. I'm Sam."

"Oh, we all know who you are, Sambo," replied Gabriel with a wink, clasping the brunette's hand and giving it a hardy shake. "Even if I personally wasn't around for some of the earlier filming. Much to my regret."

Sam laughed like he thought Gabriel was joking, and the angel-turned-cameraman didn't move to correct him.

"But yes, I'm one of the cameramen; name's Gabriel."

"So, uh…" Sam ran a hand through his hair, suddenly going nervous. "What's the plan again?"

"Well, we've gotta take you into the interview room, get your pre-meeting jitters down on camera and all that. Audiences love a shy man; sweet and innocent to contrast some of the harpies we're sending your way. Just emote and I'll take care of the rest!" Gabriel assured him.

Sam nodded, pursing his lips as if he were troubled.

"Harpies…?"

Gabriel's golden eyes flicked up to meet anxious hazel, and he offered a tender smile.

"Just a figure of speech, Sasquatch. Trust me, you'll be fine. And if there _are_ any bad apples, I'll give you a cue. Like uh…" the angel pulled a face, closing his right eye and sticking out his tongue, then whipped his hand back and forth in front of his throat, "That. For example."

Sam dissolved into laughter at that, and Gabriel considered his job well done. He slapped the Bachelor on the back, then gestured towards the villa doors. Sam nodded, eyes still sparkling with the afterglow of mirth, and entered the building.

Once they reached the red-curtained interview room, Gabriel fussed with the camera a bit to get the settings just right. It was also an excuse to get a little more time looking at Sam before the invasiveness of being filmed affected him.

"So, I just…?"

"Talk. Yeah. It's fine, shows like this aren't live, we can cut any really bad flub-ups. Think of me as… Your personal video diary!"

Sam smiled, a little anxiously, and nodded. Then, with a wave of his hand, Gabriel started the camera rolling.

"I, uh…" Sam looked down and ran a hand through his shaggy hair. "I guess I'm a little nervous. I'm not sure what all the women coming will be like. But I think I'm ready for this, if that makes any sense. I… I'm ready to be happy again."

The shy grin he shot the camera would be a crowd-pleaser, Gabriel was sure of it. How anyone wouldn't immediately fall for the way Sam's eyes sparkled when his smiles were genuine, well, the archangel didn't know.

"I'm pretty lucky that I'm going to be having so much help trying to find love, so I'll do my best to make the most of it," Sam concluded.

With another wave of the hand, Gabriel cut filming.

"There you go. See, you didn't mess up once," he exclaimed. "Trust me, the audience is gonna love you."

Sam shrugged, but the glow of his face told how pleased he was.

"So…" he said, letting out a deep breath. "Tonight's the night, huh?"

"Don't worry so much," Gabriel told him reassuringly. "Bal might be a jerk, but he's a good show host, he won't let you flounder. And I'll be there the whole time."

Sam blinked, hazel eyes going a little wide and innocent. They looked bright, and Gabriel had to force himself to break their gaze.

"You will?" the Bachelor asked hesitantly.

"Sure thing, Sambo. I'm assigned to you specifically. Wherever you go, I go."

There was still a few more hours before any of the women were to arrive. Gabriel spent that time inspecting equipment. Sam, who was still a bit jittery, decided to follow him. Though he never admitted to it particularly, the archangel was enormously pleased with the arrangement. They chatted a bit, complained about their respective brothers. Sam asked a lot of questions about the cameras themselves, claiming he had a little bit of experience in theatre tech.

They'd just barely finished preparations when Balthazar herded Sam out into the villa's drive to wait for limos carrying his potential brides-to-be. Gabriel, ever a hard worker of course, set up his camera. Balthazar gave a dramatic spiel no one but the audience would care about, and soon the first limo was opening its door to reveal a tall, shapely woman.

Her dark hair was done up in an elaborate bun made of hundreds of little cornrow braids. Her dress was long and red and probably as modest as any of the cocktail dresses or evening gowns on the show would get. She walked up to Sam confidently, introduced herself as Theresa, an appellate lawyer, and offered a brown hand decked in silver rings for Sam to shake. He did so, a bit dazzled. Gabriel tried not to snicker.

Though he would prefer Sam to be dazzled by him, the expression of awe on the brunette's face was suitably adorable no matter who was causing it. Theresa smiled toothily and departed into the villa. Her appearance was followed, one-by-one, by several more fancily dressed women. Each made an interesting entrance and more than a few had some… Quirky introductions.

But it was worth it both for the dazzling and fashionable parade itself and for the multitude of expressions that overtook Sam's features. Gabriel nodded in agreement with himself as a blonde CEO named Ashley trotted into the villa.

The next girl to step out of a limo was one Gabriel recalled, with a fond but devious smile, from Belle Plains. Like the others, she was all done up: hair curled, fancy blue evening gown. Unlike some of the others, she didn't look quite as elegant in heels. She stumbled once, just out of the door, then took long, firm strides to try and keep herself balanced, and her pace ended up looking almost angry. However, as Gabriel zoomed the camera in on the woman and Sam, she bit her lip and any illusion of roughness was gone.

"Hi," she said awkwardly.

"Hello," answered Sam.

"Sorry, can… Can I hug you? Tall people always give the best hugs."

Gabriel had to stop himself from making an audible noise of agreement. While most of his height "problems" had to do with the fact that a small stature made people underestimate him and that his vessel was several thousand years old, from the time when people generally didn't clear the 6' mark, he did have to admit that the idea of being held close by someone much taller than him was comforting somehow.

After a very brief introduction that he missed whilst daydreaming about hugs from Sam, the girl from Belle Plains had gone into the villa. There were three more women after her, each of which Sam greeted kindly and with his signature charming smile.

"Well," Balthazar asked, stepping back into frame, "what do you think?"

Sam laughed softly.

"I, uh… I think it's going to be a fun night."

"Well, I certainly hope so," the blond angel agreed, nodding.

They turned to enter the villa and Gabriel switched off his camera. Then he hauled it over his shoulder and hurried after the two of them.

There were already cameras filming the meet and greet party by the time that the three of them arrived. Balthazar stopped off only to greet everyone and announce that the first rose ceremony would be in a few hours, before he headed to… Well, Gabriel wasn't sure. Off to do something scandalous most likely.

Before he left, he handed two red roses, all but stemless, to Sam.

"You can hand these out to whoever you want. They'll guarantee she moves forward, so she won't have to go through the rose ceremony. Got it?"

Sam nodded, dark hair bouncing slightly.

Gabriel smiled to himself, just the slightest, and set up his camera while looking around at the party.

The gowns were nice and glittery and the ladies were just the slightest bit giggly from the champagne, the perfect dramatic concoction for shitty reality TV. And then there was Sam, Good Guy Extraordinaire, taking a few minutes to speak with each woman individually. Sitting next to them, listening attentively and speaking when appropriate, placing one of his large hands on their knee if they appeared comfortable with the contact – and most were. He even exchanged a few chaste kisses with some of the bolder ladies.

And since Gabriel had been specially assigned the camera that kept track of the Bachelor's whereabouts, he was privy to it all. Not that it hurt or anything, because Sam was a gentleman and it wasn't like the archangel could honestly hold anything against the lovely plethora of women falling head over heels for the big floppy-haired moose. Hadn't he already done the same?

It went on that way for an hour and a half.

Though he kept the camera focused on the ladies, Gabriel's amber eyes locked on Sam as he glanced around furtively and then slipped out the door. With a glance and a "gimme five minutes" gesture at one of his fellow camera-people, the archangel darted off after the star of their show.

He found Sam, eyes closed, slouching against the outer wall of the villa and facing the lamplit pool. His large shoulders were tense, and his head was ducked towards his chest.

"Need a break?" Gabriel asked.

Sam scrambled up, stumbling so he was no longer leaning against the wall.

"Don't _do_ that!" he gasped out, clutching a hand over his pounding heart.

Then the brunette looked around anxiously for a camera, but Gabriel held up his hands to reassure them. No one was rolling. All the cameras were busy soaking up the tipsy antics of the women in the villa. Sam eased back against the wall with a large sigh and ran a hand through his hair.

"What, not having as much fun as you thought?" Gabriel wondered, moving to lean against the wall on Sam's right. "There's like twenty-four total babes in there, Sammy-boy, all looking to be your One."

Sam smiled gently, eyes on his feet, and nodded.

"Yeah, I… I know."

Then his hazel eyes flicked up to capture Gabriel in their gaze. The archangel wetted his lips, hoping it was subtle, and tried to smirk.

"But…?" he prompted, unable to look away from the way the flickering light reflected off the pool's surface danced across the mosaic of colors in Sam's irises.

The Bachelor smiled a little more wryly, shrugged, and shook his head.

"It's nothing."

It clearly wasn't nothing, but as the cameras weren't rolling on the two of them, Gabriel could afford to just nod and lean the back of his head against the villa's wall. Sam sighed, ruffled a hand through his hair. Even then it kept its artfully-tousled look, and the archangel's mouth twisted into a slight pout because it just _wasn't fair_. The height, and the looks, _and_ the perfect hair?

"No wonder Luci wanted you for a vessel so bad, kiddo," Gabriel muttered under his breath.

"Huh?"

He pulled on a bright, cheesy smile.

"Nothing."

Sam nodded absently, then sighed again.

"I guess it's just the cameras. It's… Suffocating," he admitted, rubbing his arms. "I'm not used to it yet."

"If it's any consolation, Sambo, you definitely didn't _look_ like you had the jitters," Gabriel pointed out.

"It's not," the brunette huffed.

Gabriel pressed his lips together, trying not to smirk at the emergence of that familiar attitude. Sammy-boy just wasn't himself without a snarky comment or two. The archangel took it as a good sign. Perhaps he'd only been too nervous before, to give Gabriel lip. Of the verbal variety, though the angel hadn't gotten any of the literal sort either.

"Someone's grumpy," he teased. "Do you need to cool off? We do have a pool."

Gabriel made a wide, theatrical motion towards the water. Sam shot him a thin-lipped, annoyed look, but it only pleased the archangel all the more. His eyes lit up butterscotch even as his heart tapped an energetic beat in his chest. At last, Sam sighed and shook his head.

"It is a nice pool," he admitted.

"Shame no one's using it, really," commented Gabriel in agreement.

He realized half a second from hitting the shimmering blue water that he had walked right into that one. A gigantic splash echoed through the courtyard, but only Sam was there to hear it, and he was laughing like a child. The archangel half wished that they _were_ being filmed, if only to immortalize that laugh, which made so few appearances in the real world.

Spluttering, Gabriel made his way to the surface, resting his forearms on the edge of the pool and gazing up at Sam with glowing golden eyes, trying and utterly failing to look put out. With a tiny, smug grin, Sam reached a long, muscular arm down for Gabriel to take hold of and climb out. The angel-slash-cameraman had an entirely different idea. His trickster grin made a second-long appearance before he gripped the brunette's arm with both hands and hauled him into the pool as well.

When Sam broke the surface of the water, he made a point to splash Gabriel in the face. The archangel took it in stride and gifted him with a toothy grin. Then the two of them hauled themselves out of the pool, darting glances at each other to make sure they wouldn't get shoved back in.

Once they were both on solid ground again, Gabriel slicked his hair back into its proper position, then tried to wring out his shirt. Sam just spread his arms and looked down at his soaked tux. The archangel attempted not to give away that he felt just a tiny bit bad for ruining it.

"Oh, the—"

And then Sam was digging in his pocket. He let out a large sigh of relief after pulling out two sodden roses out.

"Well," the brunette muttered. "At least I didn't lose them."

Gabriel laughed, loudly. The roses did look especially pathetic, having been small in Sam's hands even before their impromptu bath.

"You haven't handed them out yet?" the angel asked.

Sam frowned thoughtfully and nodded to himself.

"I uh… Here."

Gabriel blinked, but accepted the soggy flower deftly, careful to hold it without damaging the petals.

"What- Sam, this is one of your—"

"I know."

The brunette's expression was a mix of guilt and embarrassment. Gabriel shook his head slowly, looking back and forth between Sam and the rose several times. Then he let a breathless laugh hit the crisp night air.

"You really are something, aren't you?" the archangel muttered.

Sam's eyes shimmered a bit, but he kept at least a fake smile on his face. Gabriel swallowed down the lump building in his throat by clearing it noisily.

"If you're gonna do something like this, at least do it right," the archangel scolded halfheartedly, pressing the rose back into Sam's large hands.

When their fingertips touched, a shudder rolled through Sam's shoulders. He rolled the flower gently between his fingers and nodded. Then he took a deep breath.

"Gabriel, will you accept this rose?"

The archangel huffed, nodded, held out a hand, and received the rose again.

"Course I will."

He chanced a glance up at Sam's face, only to find the Bachelor looking at him like he was a marvel of some sort. One of the brunette's callused thumbs skimmed Gabriel's cheek.

"What?" the archangel asked in a whisper.

Sam shook his head.

"You… Really are something."

Gabriel let out a breathy laugh.

"That's my line," he accused, not actually sounding all that put out about it.

And then Sam's lips were pressed against his and a large hand was threading through the dripping hair at the base of the archangel's skull. Something in Gabriel's chest squeezed in fondness when he realized that the kiss tasted, horribly, like the chlorinated pool water. Sam seemed to have the same thought, because when he pulled back he was letting out little breathless chuckles.

"Ew," Gabriel summed up.

"Oh, shut up. It's your fault."

And then suddenly there was a chorus of gasps. A martini glass shattered on the ground. Sam and Gabriel looked towards the noise to see all of the girls and Balthazar staring at them, with half the show's cameras pointed in their direction. Sam was still cupping the back of Gabriel's head and looked like a deer in the headlights of a fast-moving freight engine. Gabriel looked down at his hand, still holding the rose, and felt his smile flicker.

"Sam, I—"

The brunette shook his head. Then, with a tenderness that made the archangel's grace swell in his chest, Sam closed Gabriel's fingers around the rose.

"No. I… I meant that."

Gabriel closed his eyes, but definitely not to fight back tears at the power of such a small, quiet declaration in front of thirty witnesses and four filming cameras. He wondered if Sam, the real Sam, would ever say such a thing.

"Thanks," he managed, past his dueling thoughts.

And then, eyes still closed, with the warm, safe feeling of Sam's right hand cupping his left, Gabriel clicked the fingers of his right hand.


	21. Childhood Friends AU

**A/N: I just really wanted the archangels to have a family pizza parlor, alright? I also give people my permission to make that into like a full AU because that'd be rad, just like… You know, mention me and my fic if you do. I might actually end up doing it myself if I ever finish this dang fic, because I'm getting attached to a few of these AU ideas and I'd really love to give them their own stories and flesh them out a little more. Anyway, enjoy.**

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**Chapter 21: The Games We Play**

Gabriel blinked a few times to adjust to the bright light of a kitchen that smelled oh-so-deliciously of pizza. The stuff with the handmade crust, not the shitty mass-produced frozen kind. Nearby, Michael and Lucifer were arguing about something. Michael had adopted his straight-backed, imperious 'Dad-put-me-in-charge' posture. Lucifer, meanwhile, was scowling up at him with the kind of broody expression anti-establishment emo punk bands would sell their souls to imitate.

And then, in the space of a breath, Gabriel was slammed with a wall of memories and squeezed his eyes shut.

The fake recollections dancing around in his head were just that: fake. But they were precious too, relics from the kind of world he and especially Sam would never have. Stupid high school dances that consisted of more standing by the wall than American YA media wanted to admit, splash fights in the local pool, notches in the kitchen doorframe as Sam shot up and Gabriel tried not to be jealous. May Day baskets and walnut-crusted fingerprint cookies. The mixing scents of hot dough and handmade pizza sauce, Michael and Lucifer bickering over how much cheese to use. Raphael, arms crossed, watching over the Slice of Heaven Pizzeria register. Dad teaching him to drive.

It wasn't all Sam that made his heart ache so beautifully as he reminisced over his fake life. Humanity was, in many ways, so very lucky. Gabriel squeezed his eyes shut because he liked them gold and not green and because the world itself wasn't supposed to be the point anyways. The point was Sam.

Sam, who would be at Lisa Braeden's place dutifully watching Ben while Dean and Lisa were out on a date. Sam, who was probably starving while waiting for an acceptable cheesy bribe and some company from Gabriel once the little munchkin was conked out for the night.

Then suddenly there was a person standing right in Gabriel's bubble. The archangel blinked and looked up, finding, surprise surprise, Balthazar's smug face.

"Balthazar," he greeted, attempting the put-upon look Michael doled out to younger angels so well.

If Balthazar's snort was anything to go by, Gabriel's imitation wasn't very on point.

"Don't look at me like that, big brother. I didn't kick your puppy and I sure as hell didn't suck your boyfriend's dick. I'm trying to help here; some appreciation wouldn't be out of place."

"Are you seriously talking to an archangel with that kind of attitude?" Gabriel asked, torn between annoyance and genuine admiration, as was common with people who tried to stand up to him.

"Like I told dear Raphael: bite me," Balthazar retorted with a grin.

Gabriel shook his head, but couldn't help the slight upward twitch of his lips when he pictured just what Raphael's response to _that_ had been.

"Alright, Bal, you wanna be helpful then get me a p—"

"Got your special delivery right here, Captain Obvious," Balthazar interrupted, setting a warm pizza box in Gabriel's waiting hands. "Now hurry up and go make out with your human boy t—Oh, hell."

"Bal—"

"Gotta split, darling, or this'll get really awkward really quick. Catch you later."

With a familiar flapping of wings Balthazar was gone. Not just vanished from the scenario itself, either. Gabriel felt the blond angel's presence, the sort of prickly feeling of being watched by him, lift from the back of his mind. Only to be replaced by a slightly different but comparable feeling.

Someone else was spying on him instead, it seemed.

But though Gabriel glanced around, the other angel wasn't showing themselves. Gabriel frowned. Spectators were, well… Not what he wanted. But all the same, it wasn't as if the archangel was ashamed of his big fat crush on Sam and if Lucifer hadn't already trumpeted it from the highest to the lowest heaven, it would be a Dad-damned miracle.

"Fine!" he called to no one. "Knock yourself out. But try anything and I'll be on you like white on rice! Like low self-esteem on a Winchester!"

That said, Gabriel rolled his golden eyes and tossed his head and hopped in a dorky-looking beat up Toyota to deliver himself a pizza. Another wave of memories washed over him as he pulled out into the street and started driving. Unlike the first set, these were all about Sam. Sam picking fights with bullies to protect smaller children, Sam bringing home a shivering puppy and begging Gabriel to hide it in his treehouse until he'd convinced John to let him keep it, Sam sitting in the school library tapping a pen against his lip as he considered another student's rough draft. Sending texts to Sam every five seconds during their graduation ceremony while he was sitting up on stage being valedictorian and trying to act serious. Sam and Gabriel learning to ride bikes together. The two of them laughing as Gabriel tried, with patently poor results, to teach Sam how to draw.

Before he knew it, Gabriel was parked outside the Braeden house, staring at the door from his car like some lovelorn rom-com loser. Shaking his head, the archangel snatched up the pizza and rushed to the door. Then he rapped on it sharply before he could lose his nerve like an idiot.

By the time Sam opened the door, Gabriel had arranged himself in a casual slump against the frame, ankles crossed and pizza box balanced on the palm of one hand like a waiter at some fancy restaurant.

"Well, well," he commented. "A babysitter. You know, Sambo, what with me being the pizza man, this kinda reminds me of a porno that Cassie—"

"Gabe! Jesus. Ben's asleep, but that's no excuse," the brunette scolded, cheeks flaring red.

Trying to hold onto a scowl, Sam tugged the pizza away from Gabriel and flipped the top to check that the toppings were acceptable.

"It's Veggie Lover's, cross my heart," the archangel told him with a dramatic flourish. "Even if that's a sin against the gods of pizza."

Sam just rolled his eyes and turned to go back into the house. Gabriel stayed in the doorway, shifting his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot. After a few steps, Sam glanced back.

"So, are you coming in or what?" he demanded.

Face lit up like the sun, Gabriel scampered into the house and closed the door behind him. Then he followed Sam to Lisa's well-lit kitchen and watched the brunette just set the box on the table, open it up, and start tearing into the cheesy goodness inside. Sam, Gabriel remembered from both his faux-memories and his hundred days in Mystery Spot, would usually be the type to argue for proper eating technique, dishes, the whole shebang. But something about sitting nights and the godly scent of Slice of Heaven Pizza seemed to narrow the brunette's concerns to calculating and enacting the most efficient route between food and mouth.

And Sam Winchester cramming his face full of faux-healthy pizza was admittedly an amusing, even pleasant, sight. One Gabriel wanted to file away. When it came to the dynamic idiot duo, Dean was the one who usually went face-first into whatever sustenance was available. Seeing Sam relish any sort of food the same way did Gabriel's little angelic heart good. Chin cupped in his palms and elbows on the table like a heathen, the archangel watched Sam eat with a glowing fondness in his amber eyes.

When he noticed, Sam almost choked on the cheesy glob of pizza in his mouth, and swallowed it down harshly.

"So…" the brunette said, clearing his throat. "Did… You want any of this…?"

Gabriel just laughed.

"No, Sasquatch. I don't want any of your blasphemy pizza."

Sam nodded and scratched the back of his neck. His eyes darted between the remaining slices of pizza, Gabriel's guiltily amused look, and an empty corner of Dean and Lisa's kitchen.

"Is…? I mean, I feel bad that I'm the only one eating… I'll pay Lisa back for whatever, if you want to eat something," he offered, gesturing at the fridge.

"'s fine, really," the archangel assured him, waving his worries away. "Mike and Luci messed up on someone's order when they were tussling, so I snagged three or four slices on my way out the door."

Sam sighed, shaking his head at the brothers' antics.

"Can't they, I dunno, get over themselves?" the brunette wondered, rolling his eyes and taking another large bite of pizza, after which he moaned audibly. "God, this is delicious."

"They're too busy giving your taste buds orgasms, apparently," Gabriel teased.

Sam glared at him, though it was completely halfhearted. The archangel tossed his head, far more pleased with himself than Sam seemed to think he ought to be.

"Dude," Sam said, after swallowing another large bite of pizza, "the _last_ thing I want to picture is your douchey brothers giving me orgasms."

"Wow, we have so much in common!" exclaimed the archangel. "No wonder we're best friends!"

"Gabe."

But the brunette's flat expression did nothing to deter Gabriel.

"Saaaaam."

"Ok, that's it."

Sam tossed down the half-eaten slice of pizza and advanced on Gabriel. Before the archangel could even make it out of his chair, the brunette had an arm looped around his neck and was rubbing his knuckles harshly against the top of Gabriel's head, mussing his hair into an irreparable state.

"Ow, ow, Saaaam!" the angel whined, squeezing his golden eyes shut. "Not the hair! We're not in fourth grade here, you know!"

Sam released him, laughing the same way he did whenever he'd successfully pulled one over on Dean during a prank war.

"_I'm_ not," he said, settling back in his seat and taking up his unfinished slice of pizza victoriously. "But I have a hard time believing you're any older than ten."

Then, to add insult to injury, the brunette bit off a large chunk of pizza to punctuate his statement. Gabriel didn't pout, but Sam would have said otherwise.

"Real mature, Sasquatch," he muttered, trying to fix his hair.

"Says the guy who superglued Dean's butt to the bleachers in sophomore year," retorted Sam.

A slow smile spread across the archangel's face, and he made a mental note to remind himself later that the classics were still worth using every so often, even if they were a bit overdone.

"Good times," Gabriel said absently.

And of course Sam would wait til he was off his guard to ask the hard-hitting questions.

"Hey, Gabriel, is… Is something wrong?"

The archangel choked on his breath and spluttered ungracefully for a few seconds.

"Why do you ask, Sambo?" he retorted once his airways were clear.

Sam shrugged, and Gabriel fixed him with an accusing golden stare from across the table.

"Alright, alright," Sam acquiesced. "So, I just think you've been a little quiet lately, that's all. I mean, look, if it's something you wanna keep to yourself I get it, but…"

Standing and pacing somewhat agitatedly, the brunette trailed off.

"But?"

"But, I'm here for you, man! I mean, whatever it is…"

Gabriel stood too, finding only afterwards that he wasn't quite sure what to do with his hands. He slicked his hair back just to keep them busy, and tried to decide about whether to lie or not. Lying was easier, certainly. Especially with all the fake memories creating a pit of nervous warmth in his chest. Truthfully, Gabriel had never really had a friendship close enough to make him worry about ruining it with sex or romance. But apparently tropes were tropes for a reason.

On the other hand, he had created this scenario specifically to facilitate asking Sam on a date. And what kind of idiot would he be if he couldn't at least get the words out when he honestly had nothing to lose?

"Look, Gabe, you're my best friend," Sam assured him. "You can tell me anything."

"Yeah. I… I know."

Sam's big, warm hands were heavy on his shoulders. Heavy, but comforting. It was a kind of weight Gabriel hadn't felt in millennia, not since he had stood side-by-side with his three fellow archangels, his brothers. It was the weight of someone saying I'm here for you, I'm here to take care of you. It was the kind of thing Gabriel knew that he didn't deserve, or that he should have been strong enough to go on without. That he, the archangel, the protector, should be the one offering support.

But it was so soothing to be fragile and human and vulnerable when Sam looked down at him with shimmering tenderness, flecks of brown dancing in the blue-green of his irises.

"But, uh… Really, you don't have to," Sam backpedaled earnestly. "If you don't want to."

"I think I," Gabriel blurted out, before he realized what he had done and faltered, the rest of the sentence falling flat.

"Yeah…?"

And though it wasn't what he intended to say, something else equally as scandalous vacated Gabriel's mouth without permission when Sam stared him down with that puppy-dog gaze.

"I wanna kiss you."

There was a long silence. Gabriel's heart was pounding in his chest and though he was an archangel and a trickster and something to be feared, he was coiled like a terrified rabbit. Waiting for the slightest indication of negativity from Sam, any sign he should snap his fingers and jump ship while he still could.

"You want to kiss me?" Sam asked softly, gently.

The brunette shifted slightly, so he was curled at Gabriel's side, hands still on the angel's shoulders to keep him at ease. His tone was simply asking for confirmation. There was nothing threatening, nothing disgusted.

"Yes," said Gabriel, who was having a hard time remembering how to lie with 6'4" of pure American sex god looking at him from the right and smiling encouragingly.

"Why?"

Just like he had when asking the question before it, Sam kept his voice level and soft. He wasn't giving anything away, and Gabriel _hated_ that even as somewhere in the back of his brain he found himself impressed at Sam's poker face.

"Wh- I… I want," the angel struggled, gesturing between the two of them to expend some of his nervous energy. "I want us to… I want to be…"

Sam didn't interrupt, didn't try to interpret, and Gabriel let out a frustrated huff. The brunette continued to smile, though it looked a little more teasing.

"I like you, idiot," Gabriel blurted out. "And I mean the way Castle likes Beckett, or the way your brother likes his car, not the way Captain America likes Black Widow."

That at least broke Sam's wall of silence, sending him into peals of laughter. And though the phrasing and the jab at Dean were funny enough, Gabriel could be forgiven for being a little impatient for Sam's response to the revelation that his best friend was super bi for him. As if sensing this, though Sam having empathetic spidey senses wouldn't be exactly surprising, the brunette quieted his laughter and moved so he was facing Gabriel again.

"Is this," Gabriel asked, having regained his ability to ramble, "the part where I backpedal wildly to try and save our friendship?"

Sam chuckled and rolled his eyes.

"No."

And then, without further preamble, he ruffled a hand through Gabriel's hair and pecked him on the lips. It felt like a spark, zipping from the archangel's lips to his brain to his heart and back.

"Oh," he managed.

Something at the back of his mind was nagging him that his coherency and suaveness had taken a serious nosedive and he really ought to get on that, but the look in Sam's eyes was impossibly disarming. Which was of course totally unfair, when he thought about it. No one should have gazes that potent, they were too much power for any one man.

But, Gabriel considered, he might as well take advantage of his good fortune. So he leaned up and kissed Sam again, for longer.

"So… You've known me for how long now?" the brunette asked quietly when they parted. "And you were that scared of having a… A crush on me?"

"Don't be a dick," Gabriel muttered, sticking out his tongue.

"No," agreed Sam with a nod, "that's your job."

The archangel laughed.

"Touché."

And if they moved to sit on the living room to couch, deserting Sam's half-eaten pizza on the kitchen table, that was no one's business. It was especially no one's business if Gabriel indulged in human vulnerability one more time and asked Sam to hold him.

Gabriel just tried to block everything out except the sound of Sam's heart and the support of his arms, especially the encroaching presence that had scared Balthazar out of the picture. It was an experience he wanted to file away, in case he failed spectacularly when he managed to find the balls to talk to Sam for real. Which, given the circumstances of his first attempts was completely likely.

But hey, Gabriel was a master at beating the odds, right?

He consoled himself with that until the sound of a car in the driveway jostled him from his thoughts. Even though he'd only heard it a few times, that particular rumble was unmistakable: the Impala. Dean and Lisa were back.

Sam released him to go box up the pizza. Silent, Gabriel watched the muscles in the brunette's back and shoulders shift and flex beneath his shirt as he moved. The lock on the front door clicked.

Taking that as his cue, Gabriel snapped his fingers.


	22. Dog Owners AU

**A/N: Not sure how good this one is, but I've been having a little trouble writing lately. See if you can catch which Disney movie I stole a scene from; it's probably not that hard to tell. By the way, we're almost a quarter of the way done with this story, guys! Exciting, right?**

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**Chapter 22: They Call Them the Dog Days of Summer for a Reason**

Everything was green and warm; a park in summer. Gabriel took in a deep breath. Small-town park, clearly, as there was no smog in the air. Just a fresh, cool breeze, the way Gabriel liked it. A bark interrupted his musing, and Gabriel looked down. Rugby, tail wagging so hard that his whole butt wiggled with it, barked again.

"Hey little buddy," the archangel cooed, hauling the dog into his arms.

The buzz of angelic grace given off by whoever was spying on him was low-key and irritating. Like a gnat, or those stupid mosquito buzzers meant to annoy teenagers into submission. And yet he couldn't put a finger on the grace's frequency, couldn't match a name to the intruder. Gabriel squeezed his eyes shut, took ten seconds to try and block out the noise, and let out a loud huff of frustration, burying his face in Rugby's wiry fur.

Rugby whined, squirming his way out of Gabriel's arms.

"Alright, alright," he laughed softly, releasing the Jack Russell and grabbing his leash instead.

The dog barked, then hurried off into the park, tugging insistently on the leash. Gabriel followed after Rugby at a leisurely pace, letting the dog's clear happiness fill him with vicarious joy. That at least seemed to drown out the annoying background presence. They made their way through the center of the park, around the banks of its small pond.

Then, suddenly…

"Riot! No! Stop!"

There was a man-dog duo careening towards Gabriel and Rugby. The owner, a familiar moose-like brunette, was tugging backwards on the leash as hard as he could. But despite Sam's massive frame and tight hold on the leash, he was no match for the energetic Australian Shepherd.

Gabriel braced himself for a full-on collision, but the big dog just circled around behind him, as if that could help in escaping the grip of the leash. As Sam, cursing and apologizing all at once, tried to move around Gabriel and avoid tangling them both up, Riot continued his loop, tightening his black leash around both men's calves.

Leaning back, Sam and Gabriel tried to pull away from each other, but in the confusion Riot had circled their legs several more times with his leash and the struggling only unbalanced them. With an almighty splash, the two men toppled into the shallow end of the pond. Gabriel sat up, spluttering, and spat out a mouthful of pond water in a graceful, fountain-esque arc.

Rugby, for his part, hopped and paced on the shore, barking loudly at Sam and the Australian Shepherd, and it made the archangel laugh.

"You big weenie," he teased, leaning to the side and stretching his arm out to pat the Jack Russell's little head.

In the meantime, Sam had untangled himself and stood. He shook his head, spraying water in all directions, and then stepped out of the pond. After making sure Riot wouldn't run off again, Sam turned back to Gabriel with a sheepish smile.

"Uh. Hey. Sorry about that," the brunette said, holding out a large, dripping hand. "I'm Sam."

"Gabriel," the archangel responded, flicking a lock of sopping hair out of his face and accepting the extended hand. "And this little dummy is Rugby."

Sam blinked, hauling Gabriel up out of the water with a bemused expression on his face.

"You… Named your dog after… A sport?"

"Oh, hey Pot, this is Kettle," Gabriel said, sticking out his thumb and pinkie to mimic a phone and holding it to his ear. "Seriously, Sasquatch? No judgment calls from the guy who named his dog Riot."

Sam shrugged, looking at his shoes and pressing his lips together to fend off a smile.

"I didn't pick the name, my ex did. But, uh… I was just calling him 'Dog' before that, so I guess your point stands."

"You bet your sweet ass it does."

Sam's face flared red and he fumbled, dropping Gabriel's hand.

"Uh," he said. "Anyway. Sorry. Have a nice day."

With a repeated motion between ducking and nodding, Sam tugged on Riot's leash and backed away. But then Rugby was jumping on him, nipping at the brunette's worn-out jeans. Sam didn't look all that troubled by the Jack Russell failing miserably at eating his leg, but Gabriel scrambled for Rugby's leash anyway. In doing so, he slipped on the mud at the edge of the pond and stumbled forward.

The archangel had half a second to be mortified that one of his siblings was about to watch him faceplant into the grass. And then he stopped falling. Warm hands braced him just below the arms, and when he tipped his head up Gabriel got a concussion-inducing view of worried hazel eyes.

"Thanks," the angel said, clearing his throat a little.

"Yeah, uh… No problem," answered Sam, who had sunk down onto one knee to expedite his catch.

"Looks like I've fallen for you twice now," Gabriel blurted before he had a chance to put a filter on his more tricksterish persona, the one that apparently tended to rear its head when he felt a little weak or embarrassed.

But Sam actually laughed, just a bit, as he helped set Gabriel back on his feet on the grass.

"Guess you have," the brunette agreed.

The two men stood, staring at each other, for a long and awkward moment. Then they cleared their throats at the same time. Gabriel wrung out the bottom of his shirt onto Rugby's head, giving Sam the verbal right-of-way.

"So… Look, I… I really am sorry," the brunette began, carding a hand through his damp hair. "Can I, uh… Buy you a coffee to make up for it?"

Gabriel smiled up at him, pleased.

"I dunno, Sambo, a little hot out for coffee. But if you spring for a strawberry smoothie I might forgive you."

Sam fought his returning grin for all of a few seconds, then nodded. As if agreeing, Riot cozied up to Gabriel, pressing his fluffy head against the side of the archangel's thigh. Short fingers scratched the top of Riot's head, and he thumped his tail three times.

Then Rugby barked to inform everyone that he was, in fact, still there.

With half a thought to offer Sam his hand to hold, Gabriel wrapped Rugby's leash in both hands and nodded for Sam to take the lead. The four companions exited the park together and took off down the street towards the nearest chain coffee shop, the kind with a diverse enough menu to include smoothies and be filled with people wearing fashion glasses and typing away on Mac laptops. The dogs, of course, weren't allowed inside, but Sam trusted Riot's leash to Gabriel's smaller hands and breezed into the shop like he handed over his dog to near strangers every day.

"Impulsive, isn't he?" Gabriel asked Riot.

The Australian Shepherd blinked up at him lazily and let out a large yawn, showing both that he was as unworried about Gabriel's intentions as Sam seemed to be and that he had the chomping bits to secure his own safety should Gabriel be less than a perfect, non-dognapping gentleman. The archangel chuckled to himself.

"I guess you've got a point."

Eventually, legs growing tired, Gabriel sat on the curb with the two dogs. Riot, contrary to his name, seemed pleased as long as Gabriel kept scratching his ears. Rugby, on the other hand, was all over the place. Barking at passers-by, wagging his tail so hard his entire body wiggled whenever someone took the time to crouch down and pet him, and finally clambering over his new big friend. Riot didn't even bat an eye at being tackled, and Gabriel wondered if the Shepherd had prior experience with overactive puppies or other small energetic dogs.

It was about twelve minutes later when Sam finally walked out with a pink smoothie in one hand and an iced tea in the other. He traded Gabriel the smoothie for Riot's leash.

"Follow me," the brunette said. "I know a good place to sit."

So, shrugging, Gabriel followed after him, ungracefully sucking down a mouthful of strawberry smoothie. It was only as they walked that the archangel realized he'd finally dried off. All that waiting in the warm summer sunshine had erased the lingering traces of pond water from everywhere but his hair, which was still a bit damp. Gabriel blamed that on its luscious thickness, though.

Sam led the way back to the park, then over to a picnic table tastefully bordered by flowers. Gabriel was almost tempted to make a clown car joke when the brunette swung his long legs in under the tabletop, but caught it just in time. No point potentially traumatizing the adorable moose man you're trying to get to date you, right?

Leaning to the side, Sam looped Riot's leash around one of the table's legs. Gabriel took the cue and did the same with Rugby's leash. Then the archangel slid onto the bench across from Sam.

"So, Rugby, huh?" Sam asked in a way that told Gabriel he had been waiting for the right time to ask.

The little dog in question perked up his black-and-white head as he recognized his name entering the conversation.

"You might not believe this, Sambo, since I'm such a pretty face, but I used to be a rough-and-tumble sorta guy," the archangel boasted.

"It's a British sport, though," protested the brunette. "I mean, why not, say, hockey?"

Gabriel could almost feel the mischievous twinkle in his eye as he smirked.

"Well, the terrier is a British dog, you know. But that's not the real reason. Trust me, it's a story you would never believe," the archangel insisted, pointing the top of his drink at Sam.

"Try me," retorted Sam, taking a sip of his iced tea and managing to scratch the top of Riot's head without even leaning over.

"Alright, so, let me set the scene. I was young and reckless, from a very closed-off family, first time out in the big wide world, right? Had this roommate from overseas, big into sports. He convinces me taking over the school's football field for an impromptu game of rugby is a _great_ idea."

"Yeah, and?"

"Well, I'd never heard of the damn sport. So I figure sure, what the hell, be a good neighbor and all that. Get my _ass kicked_. Now I'm a sturdy guy, but my roommate and his Brit-wit pals? _Ruthless_. So there I am, laid up in the university hospital on the very first week of class. Big casts, leg-swing, the works. With me so far?"

Sam nodded his head, looking mildly confused.

"Yeah, ok, rugby, I get it," he supplied. "But what about the dog?"

"Well, I never manage to save face with my roomie again, of course. He brings up the incident whenever he can. Twice a day, three on Sundays, you feel me? And then one night he and his buddies go out to play and… Their rugby ball is in tatters."

Sam's lips started to quirk upwards.

"You _didn't_."

"Nah," he said, waving the accusation away. "I didn't. But _they_ thought I did."

Sam pursed his lips as if trying to imagine the scene in his head. Gabriel, for his part, straightened up, feeling probably more proud of himself than was necessary. The tinnitus of foreign angel grace blipped in again and Gabriel shook his head hard to try and dislodge it. The worst part was that he knew it was only bothering him because he couldn't place it; like having a word on the tip of your tongue. Unsuccessful in his attempts, he tried to block it out instead by continuing the story.

"So there we all are, 2am, on the field, a literal army of these dicks closing in on me. And out of nowhere, _this_ little fuzzball rockets into the biggest one and starts trying to eat his leg," Gabriel finished proudly. "Never been outta my sight since."

As if aware that he'd made his narrative entrance, Rugby sat up proudly. Riot let out a little whuff of air at the display.

"Wow, you were right, Gabriel," Sam teased. "I don't know if I buy that."

"Rude," muttered Gabriel, taking a petulant slurp of smoothie. "But probably smart. Speaks for your prospects as someone who associates with me."

"And I plan on doing that since…?" Sam questioned, quirking an eyebrow skeptically.

"Since you caught sight of my unconventional but attractive features? I've been told my eyes are particularly captivating," the archangel insisted with his usual flair. "Anyway, what about Riot?"

Sam shrugged.

"Not much to tell," he admitted bashfully. "I wasn't planning on keeping him when I took him in; I'd hit the poor guy with my car. But I never found the owner, and Amelia got sick of me just calling him Dog, so one day she sat me down and told me 'His name's Riot', and that was that."

"You could have at least tried to come up with a story."

"Not worth the effort, honestly."

"Sasquatch, you are _so mean_!" Gabriel whined, though unable to keep the smile from his face.

"So, get this," Sam replied, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the picnic table, "I don't actually care."

That, of all things, made laughter bubble up from Gabriel's chest and spill out his mouth. Pleased, he took another long pull of smoothie. Rugby whined and scrambled up onto Gabriel's lap, placing his little paws atop the table; the archangel just laughed.

"Nah, this smoothie is all mine, little buddy," he teased, scratching the Jack Russell's head.

"You guys seem really close," Sam said out of nowhere.

Gabriel blinked. Then he looked back and forth between the dog in his lap and the man across from him.

"Well, we are," he answered simply. "There's just… Something about dogs. You can trust them."

Averting his gaze to Riot, curled up peacefully in the picnic table's shade, Sam nodded.

"Yeah."

They sat in silence for a few minutes afterwards, finishing their drinks.

"At the risk of sounding terribly cliché," the archangel said with a cheesy grin, curling his hands around the empty plastic smoothie cup, "do you come here often?"

Sam ducked his head.

"Every weekend, weather permitting."

"How about," said Gabriel, sliding Rugby off his lap and himself off the bench to stand up, "you and I meet up here on Saturday? And try not to fall in the pond this time, of course."

The brunette glanced up, eyes expressive, but said nothing aloud. Gabriel huffed.

"I'll come up with an even better story about how Rugby got his name," he offered, holding out his right hand with only the pinkie finger extended.

Sam chuckled softly, nodded, and briefly linked his own pinkie with Gabriel's.

"Saturday," he agreed. "At 12:45. If the story's not impressive I'm leaving."

"Wouldn't expect any different," the archangel professed with a bow.

As he turned to leave, a large hand caught his wrist.

"Gabriel?"

Twisting a little to look back at Sam, Gabriel blinked his golden eyes, looking curious.

"Uh… Yeah?"

"Thank you," the brunette said. "For this afternoon. I, uh… I haven't had that much fun in a while."

"Me either."

Memorizing the sheepish but pleased look on Sam's face, Gabriel pressed the middle finger and thumb of his free hand together.

"Catch you later," the archangel said.

Then he clicked his fingers.


	23. Halloween AU

**A/N: I am so SO sorry this took so long! It's been... Rather an ordeal lately.**

**To "Sabriel's Child", I'm interpreting your review as asking whether Gabe's gonna get out of his loop and ask real Sam out eventually. If that is your question, the answer is YES. MOST DEFINITELY. The answer is also NOT FOR ANOTHER 77 CHAPTERS I'M SORRY—**

**(If you really get impatient, though, I've crossposted this fic onto AO3, and thanks to their nifty series option I was able to post a version of the story that skips over the middle AUs and finishes out with the last four chapters, which I have already written.)**

* * *

**Chapter 23: What Doesn't Kill You Might Already Be Dead**

"I should really focus on not doing this, huh," Gabriel said aloud, to both himself and the incessant dial tone of his anonymous sibling's grace.

'This', while worded vaguely, obviously referred to the sudden lighting shifts between scenarios. Instead of a sunny summer park, Gabriel was inside a dark hallway which was occasionally lit up with the flash of strobe lights. His first thought would have been 'rave' if not for the fakey giant-cotton-ball cobwebs and the tinny Halloween music playing over speakers he couldn't see.

It only took a look down at himself, covered in fake blood and gore, for Gabriel to determine he was part of the haunted house, not a customer. Which, of course, made perfect sense because while he was a fan of doing the scaring, the archangel wasn't much one for being snuck up on himself.

He was still getting his bearings when from around the corner there was a yelp, a crunch, and some very familiar accented curses. He rushed into the next hall to see Sam tensed up like a coil, Charlie wide-eyed in shock, and a scary clown in fetal position on the floor. After a few seconds he stood and behind the facepaint, clutching his nose was…

"Baldur?"

He hadn't been expecting that, and maybe it was only his unconscious audacity that allowed him to bring in the carbon-copy of a dead Pagan for the show. Sure, in his time as Loki he'd tried to kill Baldur himself a few times, but as a Pagan god, especially one from the Norse pantheon, that was par for the course. He'd never really meant it. He hated the guy, liked to see him suffer, but nobody deserved Lucifer's fist through their ribcage.

Gabriel blinked, shaking his head. The point was, grim extenuating circumstances aside, it was damn funny to see Baldur in a clown costume with a bloody and possibly broken nose.

"Oh god I'm so sorry…! I didn't mean—"

"Wow, you really _don't_ like clowns."

Gabriel's golden gaze slid over to the right where Sam was frantically trying to apologize and Charlie looked mildly apologetic if not suitably shame-faced.

"What happened here?" the archangel demanded.

Sam turned to him, looking desperate.

"H-he came out of nowhere, I didn't mean to…!" the brunette insisted before holding out his hands as if to steady Baldur. "I'm so sorry, I'll get you some ice, or—"

"Oh man, Gabe, I didn't think he'd really _hit_ anyone," Charlie interrupted. "Look, I'll step in to help if you need—"

"_Alright_, alright, come on you three. Out the side door," Gabriel instructed, gesturing to a fire exit covered in fake cobwebs.

After ushering them out into the mostly-empty parking lot, he snapped his fingers. His left hand dropped with the weight of a Ziploc full of ice. Much more convenient than going to get some from the school's freezers; for a high school was indeed what it was. Then he strode over to the little group huddled on the upraised stretch of concrete under one of the parking lot's street lamps – Gabriel made a mental note to search what the heck those were called sometime.

"Baldur," he said, getting the injured clown's attention before gently tossing him the ice.

"Thanks," the dark-haired man muttered, bringing the baggy up to his swelling nose.

Sam, sitting next to him and wordlessly fretting, looked like a concerned puppy. It was both heart-melting and a little worrying at the same time, especially when his large fingers flitted over the knuckles of his right hand and Gabriel saw purplish bruises starting to form.

"I'll get more ice," the archangel offered, gesturing to Sam's right hand.

Startled hazel eyes locked on him and after that galaxy-bright look Gabriel suddenly doubted whether he'd actually be able to move and follow through on the offer.

"It's fine," Sam responded quickly, hiding his hand with his sleeve. "Really."

It was in that moment that Charlie piped up, twisting a strand of brilliant too-red hair between her fingers.

"Ugh, sorry, Gabe. I know how hard you and the others worked on this haunted house," she muttered, scuffing the toe of her doodled-on Converse against the ground of the parking lot. "If I'd known Sam was gonna go all Hulk, I'd've brought somebody else."

Gabriel let out a laugh, just to break the tension in the air, then waved her concerns away.

"It was an accident. Now you know not to bring gigantor here to haunted houses. Anyway we can probably leave that hall unmanned for a bit. Let people scare themselves silly waiting to be attacked," the archangel insisted.

Charlie shrugged, huffing and ballooning out her cheeks for a moment.

"I just wanted to bring someone big to scare you," the redhead admitted.

The archangel winked.

"Sugar, nothing scares me."

Except, ironically, Sam Winchester. But that was neither here nor there. With a large sigh, Gabriel plopped down next to Sam and scrubbed his hands over his own face for a moment. Then, suddenly…

"Kali scares you," Baldur piped up out of nowhere, voice muffled by his bag of ice.

"No, Kali scares _you_," the archangel scoffed in return.

"She does not. Kali and I have a mutual respect for one an—"

"You're her boytoy, Baldur. Get over it."

"I am n— How dare—"

"I'm afraid of zombies," Charlie burst in, tugging on the twisted strand of her hair in a nervous pattern, as if she were sending some sort of Morse code distress signal to her brain from her reddish locks.

Gabriel let out a whoosh of air, and with that the tension seemed to dissolve. The archangel smiled a bit, fondly, up at Charlie. She grinned back sheepishly. Then her eyes flicked to Sam briefly and she raised her eyebrows. A suggestion. Trust Charlie to catch on to something like that. But, Gabriel supposed, it was no secret to anyone, least of all present company, that he liked his men tall and his women dangerous.

And those of a less binary nature however they found him, of course, he thought with a smirk.

Not that anyone had _anything _on Sam. Oh, no. Gabriel knew the first time he'd laid eyes on the strapping idiot hunter-slash-vessel that his candy-munching goose was well and truly cooked. Oh, he'd tried to deny it, but… Well, they'd all seen how _that_ worked out.

"Gimme your hand, Sambo," Gabriel demanded, blinking hard to remove himself from stupid contemplation.

The brunette pulled his injured fist back a bit, frowning, but Gabriel was having none of that. Catching hold of Sam's hoodie sleeve in his strong grip he tugged the arm inside until the rather large hand attached to it was spread over his own knees. Then he had to swallow hard, because Sam's hand was intensely warm.

"Fire cannot harm a dragon," the archangel muttered under his breath, smoothing Sam's fingers out to get a look at the extent of the damage.

"What?"

Gabriel's head shot up and he was once more being stared down by hazel eyes.

"Nothing," he said instantly.

Sam's expression turned patently skeptical, but there was a pinch of amusement in the set of his eyes and at the very edges of his lips. And, the most hopeful bit, Sam hadn't tugged his hand away. In fact, it wasn't even tensed, resting loosely on Gabriel's knees as the archangel's fingers mindlessly brushed and prodded at it to make sure bruising really was the extent of damage.

"I didn't break anything," Sam insisted at last, but continued to let Gabriel have his way.

"And four out of five dentists recommend Crestor, Sasquatch, but what about the fifth one? Always good to have a second opinion," the angel retorted briskly.

Something between a cough and a chuckle hit the cool autumn air and Gabriel swore a firework had gone off in the darkness. Sam shook his head, still letting out puffs of mirth for a minute after.

"Gabe, right?" he asked quietly. "How do you and Charlie know each other?"

But before Gabriel could answer, the redhead herself cut in.

"This weirdo stumbled into the middle of a Moondoor competition by accident. I had to save him from a raving gang of Shadow Orcs," she said, flicking a lock of hair over her shoulder majestically.

"Moondoor?" Sam asked. "Isn't that your, uh… LARPing… Thing…?"

As he spoke, his bruised hand twitched. Gabriel was torn between feeling amused and utterly infatuated at the motion. It was clear that while Sam's instinct was to keep using his injured hand for gesturing, he was purposely refraining from doing so as long as Gabriel wasn't finished studying his hand for misplaced bones. There weren't any, it seemed, but that didn't make the archangel any less reluctant to release the brunette's large, warm hand.

"Yeah, my _LARPing thing_," Charlie agreed, rolling her eyes.

Baldur cleared his throat. Probably to remind everyone he was there. And injured. Although the reminder of that really only made Gabriel smirk like the bad child he was.

"I'm going to be… Compensated for this, yes?" he asked brusquely, mouth turned in a sour frown.

"Oh yes," Gabriel answered, voice flippant. "Maybe double if I can see Kali's reaction when you try to take her out looking like Grendel."

Baldur tried to sneer, but winched as the flesh around his injured nose was tugged by the expression. He had to settle for pressing the melting ice pack more firmly against the swelling. Sam let out a wordless noise of protest and gave Gabriel a disapproving frown for his rudeness. With a wide trickster smile, the archangel ran his thumbs over the back of Sam's hand one more time and then released him.

"Really, I can dress up and take his place," Charlie insisted.

"It was my mistake, I'll help. However you need," said Sam as he took his hand back, settling it on the concrete.

"Doubt we've got anything in your size, Sambo," Gabriel quipped. "Like I said, it'll be fine. Wouldn't wanna traumatize you by dressing you up like It over there."

He jabbed his thumb at Baldur dismissively and shrugged. No one in the group seemed placated by the archangel's nonchalant attitude, however. Charlie actually looked downright disapproving, which was something of a shock considering she was usually on his side about shirking the troublesome responsibilities of life.

"Come on, Gabe. I'm no stranger to fake blood," the redhead cajoled. "Tag me in, here. It _is_ my fault your clown's struck out."

Stubborn, Gabriel thought fondly, and pushed himself to his feet.

"No, it's my fault, I'm the one who punched him," Sam sighed, standing as well.

Gabriel rolled his eyes.

"Fine, I'll press you _both_ into service, happy?"

Charlie's bright smile and Sam's embarrassed shrug were answer enough. Gabriel rolled his eyes. Then he tipped his chin a bit, to get Baldur's attention.

"You should go home, Baldur. Or to an Urgent Care. You look like you need it," he insisted, maybe just a tad mockingly. "And _you_ two hooligans are with me."

"Fuck you, Gabriel," Baldur muttered, but stood and headed towards his car.

No one else paid him any mind, however, because Gabriel was dragging his newest victims aka volunteers back into the school building. Five minutes later, they were suitably creepy.

"Is this really necessary?" Sam asked, studying the plastic ax in his hand, which was covered with theatre blood.

"You wound me, Samuel," scoffed the archangel, placing a hand over his heart. "Props are essential. No get your sweet cheeks in gear and go scare some middle schoolers!"

And though he would deny it wholeheartedly to absolutely no one, Gabriel felt something warm and elated swell in his chest like a party balloon when Sam shot him that characteristic skeptical look. So he blew the fake-gore-smattered lumberjack a kiss. Charlie, in turn, smacked Gabriel on the back with all the force of a linebacker. Thankfully, he was an archangel, so it didn't hurt.

"Not really my type, but he does have very nice eyes," she concluded as Sam walked out into the hallway to get to his post. "Congrats, Gabe."

And despite the itch of his sibling's grace at the back of his skull, which he'd relegated to white noise and forgotten if only for a moment while getting Charlie and Sam gussied up, the archangel let out a longing sigh.

"Yeah, I wish, cupcake."

"Oh please," she huffed, waving a hand. "You're like the real-world equivalent of what Jim Kirk is to alien chicks. He'll come around."

Gabriel's lips twitched into a smile and he was tempted to pull the redhead into a headlock and give her a fond but well-deserved noogie. The only thing stopping him was the copious amount of white facepaint she was wearing, which he didn't want anywhere near himself. While they dawdled, a few high-pitched shrieks of terror floated down the hall.

"That'll be the next batch of customers. My lady?" Gabriel offered with a bow.

With a decidedly evil grin, Charlie stalked out into the decorated hallway. Gabriel fought back a smile halfheartedly and wiped nonexistent tears from the corners of his eyes.

"Dad bless that woman."

And then he followed after her.

It was already nearing the end of the night when Baldur had been so _unfortunately_ injured, so the final shift wasn't actually all that long. However, Gabriel admitted openly that what time there was had been fun. Despite his general shoulder bowing, puppy-faced demeanor, Sam's size was more than enough to send the patrons of the haunted house running for their mommies on its own. And after a while, the ridiculous moose actually got into his role and used all 76 of those inches to their full potential. Gabriel wasn't sure whether it was pride, amusement, or love that pressed his own mouth into a beaming smile, but he actually didn't care.

Once the last of the customers had tricked out of the school, the archangel looped one of his arms through Sam's and twirled the brunette about.

"You were _fantastic_, Sammy-boy!"

But before Sam had a chance to respond, Charlie cleared her throat. Of course, after only a few seconds of tapping her foot and crossing her arms she threw herself at the both of them. Sam, as was only right for his stature, ended up supporting most of the group's weight. They exited the building this way, laughing, and Dad strike him down if Sam's laugh wasn't one of the most achingly precious sounds Gabriel had ever heard.

He had an odd, startling thought that he was, in that moment, completely satisfied. Even without having really made a move on Sam, even without any sort of indication that the brunette would be willing to consider him romantically… Just having that large hand around his shoulder was enough, when Sam's wholehearted laughter was still ringing in the night air.

And though it was strange of him, Gabriel being hardly the demure type, he popped up onto his tiptoes and pressed a chaste kiss to Sam's cheek.

Knowing the laughter would stop abruptly, in surprise if nothing else, Gabriel clicked his fingers together so the sound would follow him to his next attempt.


End file.
